Jeanette
by WALL-E and EVE In Love
Summary: This is a crossover of when Jeanette got grounded.
1. Introduction

Earth, a world long forgotten, a once terrestrial beacon of life now scarred by its former inhabitants and their artificial leavings, now an impurity floating around in space, a ball of garbage so to speak. Such an ironically laughable thought that it's the only known habitable planet in the known universe, if anyone could've seen it now….

However, no one can or ever will again, now that it is by definition: devoid of life. An entire planet with absolute zero population, the former twelve billion inhabitants left their mark, or marks seen from space by new landscapes made entirely of garbage, if the atmosphere had any visibility that is. Even the air is subsequently thick from pollution and the landmasses are almost unrecognizable. Entire continents covered, reshaped, and transformed into a combination of tundra and desert like wastelands solely by plastic, paper, and metal waste; every city now giant junkyards, buried by mountains or towers of trash if seen from afar.

* * *

Here, in the Buy 'N Large, Cleanup Sector _NA-001_, formerly known as New York City, it is barely what it used to be like by the humans who lived here. The once mighty iconic buildings of downtown Manhattan now dwarfed or were buried by the even taller copious numbers of towers made entirely of trash cubes, thousands of feet high and stretching on for miles in all directions. The once water filled bays of the Hudson now dried up polluted valleys by the receded Atlantic. Old buildings and bridges mostly rusted and eroded away by the etchings of time, nature, and man's impact. Garbage and the howling volatile winds is the only predominant feature present in the once recognizable metropolis …but it's not the only thing in this hellhole.

A faint but clear chirping of music sounded, like a whisper in the winds of the dead city. In the distance, something moves amongst the heaps of trash, traversing the streets, a single chipmunk.

A lone chipmunk female walked around the avenues of trash towers, strolling across the desolate littered streets carrying out her job, or known as "directive." The sound of music emitted from the young chipmunk's cassette player.

She stops near a small, ancient mobile trash compactor nearby, one of the many around the Sector, wielding in a shovel in her suit's mittens, begins scooping a pile after pile of the land's indefinite filth into the device, and activated it. The sound of its obsolete and worn hydraulics grinding as it compresses the garbage into a cube echoing through the streets, not silencing the sound of upbeat happy music. The compactor opens and spits out a one by one meter cube of junk, weighing roughly fifty kilos. The chipmunk then picks it up with practiced ease and carries it behind her back. Another life form, a purple-winged butterfly, follows close behind her. After some considerable climbing and carrying up a height of trash, the chipmunk finally stacks the cube along with the others at the top of the tower.

The chipmunk pauses for a moment, leaning against the cubes trying to catch her breath from such labor. She wore a suit like the suit Sandy Cheeks wears, but, instead of an acorn symbol, the symbol was a purple letter J. The flower on her helmet wasn't pink, it was purple. But, the boots were the same. Her name, Jeanette, which is what the J stands for. The J symbol is also purple. She has brown fur.

She looks back at the cubes in front of her.

"Huh?" Something caught her attention, a shimmering object from one of the cubes. She grabs it, it doesn't budge, and she tries harder, grunting for more strength, still nothing. Yanking on it with her feet on the cubes, pulling with all her might, the iridescent object finally breaks free with a sudden force that Jeanette falls flat on her back. She sits herself up and simply stared at the object she pried free, just a circular trash lid.

_Huh?_ she wondered how something so simple would make her work herself to just know what it was, such curiosity she had.

"Holly!" She whistles for her butterfly companion to come with her, back down the one thousand meter or one three hundred, nine thousand feet of trash tower in a spiraling makeshift ramp, slowly making her way smoothly but at unease at the sight of a long way down to the streets below.


	2. Home On The Range

It's a far enough distance to traverse through the toxic city, as Jeanette traveled alone on foot down the streets from the mountains of trash of former Central Park. Old buildings crumbled and towers of garbage cubes proudly standing as far as the eye could see but she remained unfazed, remaining oblivious to Buy N' Large mega corporation logos, similar to the one on his uniform. Holographic screens materialize from literally everywhere. Buy n' Large shopping, Buy n' Large bank, Buy n' Large restaurants, stores, skyscrapers, Buy n' Large everywhere! (except on Jeanette's suit) She passes Wall Street, old newspapers scattered everywhere, barely legible from the dirt, read: "TOO MUCH TRASH! EARTH COVERED! BUY N' LARGE CEO DECLARES GLOBAL EMERGENCY!" Jeanette reaches an elevated maglev train station, the train itself derailed and eroded on the abandoned spot so long ago. Jeanette motions for Holly to follow, as she hops down on the tracks and continues walking, a short cut home, but not a pleasant one.

Her parents had told her to stay off the tracks 700 years ago when they took subway trips. Jeanette used to get very excited when she heard the train coming. Once, she even sang about how excited she was and the crowd was annoyed. Her parents stopped taking her on the subway train ever since. Now that her parents were dead, Jeanette could come here whenever she wanted to.

Right now, all around her are all her games and toys her parents took away centuries ago. All parts of her games were in the boxes they belonged in. Some boxes were purple like the flower on Jeanette's helmet. When Jeanette was grounded, her parents took all her games and threw them in the garbage and here they were. Jeanette's parents said she wouldn't get her games back unless she wrote her lines 519, 462 times. But, so far, she'd only written them 700 times. Since Jeanette always thinks positively, the fact she had to write her lines didn't bother her. Her parents were always worried about her safety. In fact, sometimes they took it too far, so they would tell her annoying things like:

"Don't do that, Jeanette. It's not safe!"

"You have to be careful when you're playing here." (this happened when Jeanette was playing with her little brothers and sisters in her bedroom)

"If you don't stop eating apples, you'll rot your teeth." (they must've forgotton that apples don't have sugar in them!)

Every time Jeanette thinks about those sentences, she mutters under her breath: "Don't they know apples are good for you?" with a small giggle. Seeing her games scattered about gives her an idea.

"I'll take them home." she says, staring at the games. Jeanette looks around, trying to decide which game to take home. Finally, she spotted her favorite game: snakes and ladders. From the looks of it, all the necessary parts were still there. Jeanette picked it up and carried it home. Her memories filled her with sadness. One Halloween, Jeanette dressed up in red with a lightning bolt on her side. Her parents didn't like her costume though and they only let her trick-or-treat to 3 houses! Perhaps so she wouldn't eat too much candy, but Jeanette was smart enough to know that already. One Christmas, she was only allowed to ask Santa for one gift, but Santa always said she behaved well enough for more. Jeanette looks at her games scattered everywhere. The holidays were never as much fun unless her parents would learn to slow down! _Santa only leaves gifts for good girls, remember to say "May I have some candy please" 3 times, _Jeanette shook the thought from her mind. On Halloween, her parents wouldn't even let her say "trick or treat"! She carries her snakes and ladders game, trying hard not to think of the things her parents wouldn't let her do. Carrying the snakes and ladders game over her head, Jeanette whistles triumphantly as she and Holly made their way down the tracks to the streets. High tech ads appear as she passes, displaying a luxurious Buy n' Large spaceships leaving Earth.

A voice comes on over the advertisement.

_"TOO MUCH GARBAGE IN YOUR FACE? THERE'S PLENTY OF SPACE OUT IN SPACE!"_ Images with workers like her still on the surface, all with content of cleaning, like a janitorial advertisement.

At last, she reaches the last road that leads to her destination, the ad talks more about the Axiom then finishes. At last, Jeanette reached home.


	3. Home Sweet Treedome

This tree dome is an essence, her house. There's a little yard with a place to hang her suit and helmet. Inside, it looks like a regular house. But in her bedroom are rotating shelves of trash or to her: treasures. Interesting items she curiously found and collected from the trash-compacting over the years, probably since the day her family died. Since then, she has retrieved and compiled seemingly everything random she could find: old broken children's' toys, parking cones, pony ride stands, hand tools, antique clocks, old books, Christmas lights, utility-home appliances, hardware, weird clothing, a drum, signs, anything.

Jeanette takes off her suit and helmet and hangs them up, humming cheerfully to the tunes of the music from earlier as she finally settles down for the day. She then enters the tree itself to put her snakes and ladders game away. She still has her bed, but her alarm clock was taken away by her grandmother. Now she has to use her heartbeat to wake herself up. Everything inside her tree looks like a cottage. Jeanette sets down her bag, collapsing on her bed. Holly hangs upside down with her wings wrapped around herself.

First, Jeanette sees her favorite movie, learns about love, cleans out her bag, feeds herself and Holly then goes to bed.


	4. On The Job

Jeanette's heart beats, disturbing the silence of the dark tree itself. Jeanette's heart beats steadily.

Jeanette stirs, groggy from her semi-nightmare-free sleep. Her eyelids weighing a thousand pounds as she tries to wake. Groaning as she tries to move, she gets out of bed, puts on her air helmet and goes up to the roof of her tree dome. In an instant, her back feels warm and she's ready for the day. She shakes the last bit of sleep off as she climbs down the dome and inside to prepare for her day.

_What did my Mom tell me about retirement? _she wonders. Her mother had once told her that after many years of service, people retire. Jeanette should have retired by now, but the Earth was too polluted. Remembering the film from last night, she shrugs off her thoughts of her retirement lesson, for she couldn't retire if the Earth was polluted.

Zoned out so much, Jeanette accidentally step on Holly's wing.

"AAaah!" They both jump. Holly seems to be fine though. The creature has been through worse for Jeanette found her as an innocent caterpillar hiding under a leaf, all sad from a lecture, but saved her from a hungry bird. Holly was what she was named, she took her home, not that to make a pretty family's pet when she turned into a butterfly with flashy purple wings but like everything else she found, was very curious, Holly herself too, but Jeanette kept an eye out for this well-being even when her family died.

She points to Holly and to behind her.

"Stay," she says with a stern look. Holly does so and Jeanette seems to be satisfied. Now suited up with her suit, helmet, supply bag and shovels in hand, she walks off to work.

Scoop, shovel, compact. Scoop, shovel, compact. Scoop...

So annoying the way she knows how to carry out her task of trash-compacting. At a new spot in town, Jeanette shovels piles after piles into one of the many hydraulic compacters throughout the city. Usually making many as ten cubes every minute and preparing to make another tower along with all the monumental trash skyscrapers. Occasionally Jeanette comes across something to add to her bag. One particular item, she examines with complete bafflement, is an article of tan fabric she doesn't recall. A strip of thin, stretchable fabric connected to two large spheres like cups. Attached on the top of both cups were narrow strip of adjustable fabric making a loop to the back of the garment. "Hmm," she slowly examines it for a second, bringing them close and over her eyes.

"Whoa!" That's weird, why would you put this over your eyes anyway? She takes the garment off her face and tosses it into her bag.

Jeanette finds interesting artifact later that day. One of them made distant beeping sounds from afar by pressing a button on an ancient tactile identification rubberized plastic key fob. Another one with a flat wooden paddle with a small rubber ball attached in the center via elastic string repetitively hits her helmet and a hand held cylindrical pressure vessel that discharged foam knocks Jeanette off her feet. Jeanette quickly chucks the foam displacement device far away. The day drags on as cube after cube, and item after item is stacked away, Jeanette never stopping for anything, until she finds a big refrigerator in her path of shoveling.

Jeanette tries opening it, but it wouldn't budge an inch. Jeanette opens up her tool compartment on her suit's belt and pulls a tiny, silver cylinder out. She pushes a button, and a red beamed pulse sonic laser emits, cutting through the fridge door like a knife through warm butter. The fridge door's fall off, revealing something Jeanette has never seen since the Earth got polluted except for the grass in her dome and her tree with green leaves on it.

Small. Green. Biological. Jeanette looks at it, focusing her eyes on the object, a plant; a simple weed.

"Oooooh!" her curiosity peaked, she takes in the small thing. It looked so frail, so insignificant, but so alive, a tiny bright thing against the ugly brown world around it. Nothing compared to the inanimate objects she found. The object is obviously something special to look after, like Holly.

She carefully scoops up the plant into her paws, and places it into one of her old shoes in her bag. She wipes off a speck of dirt from it. This tiny thing now bewilders her it looked...

_Beautiful, _she thought.

Later that afternoon, Jeanette decided to stop for the day. Having found more objects to add to her collection, she makes her way home, her mind still on the plant she found. Thing back to the world she used to describe it, beautiful, it truly was something different, but why, she could not figure out.

Contemplating her thoughts as she reaches for the door...something catches Jeanette's eye...

Next chapter is where the fun begins! Brittany is introduced!


	5. First Encounter

"What's that?"

Jeanette stares at the bright red circle on the ground, appears to have materialized out of nowhere. Able to see it through her air helmet, able to see it with her glasses on, maybe she was seeing things. It was a flickering, maybe another weird object she could add to her collection, but it doesn't seem right.

_What on Earth is that? _As she reaches out to touch it, the red circle suddenly moves from her, to the other side of the bridge.

_Maybe it's a bug. _Jeanette sets down her things as she walks over to the mysterious circle. It moves again, as if trying to get away from her. She tries blocking it, but it continues to move. It does a slow circle around Jeanette, but as she tries to twist around to see it without moving, she follows the dot in a complete 360° and falls over. Jeanette's parents have always told her to watch the ground when she's outside. They always sent her to the hospital whenever she fell over, even when it's just a little boo-boo; one that can easily heal by putting a bandage on it. But this time, there are no scars on her whatsoever because her suit can protect her from anything like thin armer. The dot finally moves down the bridge at high speed. Jeanette runs after it, trying to catch it. She chases it down the street and into the open Hudson valley.

Unknown to Jeanette, distracted by this one red dot, another laser dot appears behind her, then another, tens of them, hundreds to thousands of them, all in a giant circle. Appearing on buildings and quickly traveling down the edifices, streets, and into the dry river, all of them enclosing around the one dot Jeanette is after.

Having chased this thing in circles, the strange dot stops in the middle of the deserted valley.

"Aha!" Jeanette triumphantly yells. She still doesn't notice the other red dots enclosing her.

As Jeanette reaches to grab the dot but found it is just light.

"Huh?"

The other dots triangulate with the center dot. She notices the ground shaking and the air getting hotter.

"HUH?" Jeanette exclaims, hearing a low roar, something like the sandstorms, but different, like something fiery and mechanical. She looks up, finally seeing the source of the noise, small balls of fire in the air coming down right above her fast!

Screaming in panic and out of reflex, Jeanette runs in one direction to avoid the threat. The bellowing noise has become very loud, scorching hot and windy altogether. Jeanette losses her footing and is blown off her feet by the unknown object, a column  
of fire, smoke, and kicked up dirt filling the air with deafening sound, suddenly winding down in a mechanical whir, all is calm.

Jeanette can barely move, shaken as she risks a peek at the source of the noise and heat that knocked her down.

The dust still thick to see through but the ground now has turned to molten blacken glass. Jeanette now sees the object: a rocket ship.

She slowly gets up, still shaken but now knows what just landed. The spacecraft had three extended engines attached to a tall body. A Buy n' Large logo stretched along the side, along with the letters 'ARV' written in futuristic bold font on the side. Jeanette cautious approaches this thing, wondering what it was doing here. A whirring sound emits from the spacecraft, causing Jeanette to jump over the hissing of a hatch opening up at the rear of the unknown ship. Jeanette dives behind the nearest rock to hide, no more than a few meters away. Something lowers from the opening, a six foot long cylindrical capsule, made of translucent metal, Jeanette noticed a layer of frost covering the whole capsule, as if emerging from a subzero freezer being lowered by the mechanical arm and letting go of it, the object levitating a few inches off the ground looked like a cryonic tube but had no seams along its surface to form any kind of opening, like it was one solid piece. A holographic keypad appears on its spotless surface. Through the tinted layers of frost and the capsules semi-transparent material, Jeanette could make out a silhouette or a shadow within the capsule. Its shape oddly enough resembled something akin to a body, or an object with long and uneven curvatures. It looks like this capsule was holding something...or _someone_ inside.

Jeanette watches in fascination, sinking back behind her cover every time these machines create a loud noise. A smaller robotic arm emerges from the ships mechanical arm, punching in some codes into the capsules keypad. As the last code punched in, the capsule emits a soft whir, getting louder and louder, like its getting ready to-

PSSSSSST!

Jeanette jumps in surprise as the pod suddenly hatches open, cowering behind the rock.

_What **is** that?_

Seconds go by without a single sound, drawing in a notion for Jeanette that all was clear. Her curiosity gets the better of her as she hesitantly peeks over, the steam slowly fading to reveal…

Another chipmunk, thawing and reclined lifelessly inside the pod but upon closer inspection, it was breathing. When Jeanette focuses clearly at the fully unfrozen human with the steam completely cleared, gasps at the sight before.

The chipmunk inside was also a female, she was beautiful.

Brittany.

She lays reclined in her thawed out cryonic pod in deep sleep, like a sleeping angel. An angel with orange fur, blue eyes and a pretty looking tail like Jeanette's. The most beautiful thing, Jeanette had ever laid eyes on, as she is the only thing Jeanette thinks would never scold anyone. Jeanette loved the way this chipmunk blinked her eyes, for she had beautiful eyelashes. Jeanette's angel suddenly stirred, awakening from suspended animation. She sleepily opens her eyes, turning over to sit up, and at that moment, Jeanette was suddenly transfixed on her angel's smile. It made her heart all warm and she was filled with tears of joy.

She slowly steps out onto the ground as she looks around, taking in her surroundings. She stood five foot eight inches. Even from afar, her white suited body looked beautiful to Jeanette. Her angel wore a white dress with no sleeves, a space helmet with a black thing that protected her face and blue goggles that glow right through the black face-protector. She also had a unity belt with a special stick she could scan things with, which is what she began doing. She also wore white princess gloves that went right up to her elbows and anti gravity boots so she could fly. The whole thing stole Jeanette's breath.

Brittany punches in a code on the cylinder she emerged from and in a second, the pod began to separate into pieces, folding into each other and shrinking until the entire thing was a pocket sized cylinder! Jeanette is amazed but still focused on her angel. Her angel places the cylinder into one of her many side pockets, now pulling out some holographic pad from her utility belt, scanning the area around her. Captivated by this maiden's impossible image, Jeanette watches her blissfully. It was almost tempting to ask her to adopt her, for Jeanette's whole family died after the day she was grounded. Jeanette thought her angel would make the most perfect mother, for she didn't seem capable for grounding anyone.

She was so beautiful! By the look of her smile, it seemed she would let let Jeanette do anything she wanted and would never be mean about it. Jeanette muttered under her breath, her head tilted, time seemed to slow down for her. Jeanette knew that if her angel adopted her, the rules would be much easier and more fun too!

The ship's robotic arm retracts. Jeanette snaps out of her trance at the sudden noise. She ducks again behind her cover, unsure of what these machines were doing by themselves.

She kept her eyes on the angel, who now moved further away from the ship. A whirring sound heard, engines firing up.

_The ship!_

Jeanette runs to escape the approaching blast waves of the launching spacecraft. Unfortunately, Jeanette is yet again blown over by the heat of the rocket engines as the ship achieves lift off. A column of fire and smoke engulfs the surface. Jeanette is blown a few meters away, over her head several times. In a few seconds, the roar and heat of its engines got quieter, the ship climbing higher into the polluted sky as it disappears into the clouds.

Shaken, having survived twice from being burned and blown away, Jeanette raises her head from a ducking position, making sure it's safe. All is calm again.

_Wait! My angel!_

She looks around the dissipating column of smoke and dust, before spotting her a few hundred feet away. She is unharmed, still gracefully surveying the ground if nothing happened.

She stops for a moment, looking up into the direction the spaceship took off if waiting for it to leave. She looks around her, all clear. She raises into the air, spinning lightly, her antigravity boots glowing, but emitting no sound.

"Whoa!" Jeanette is fascinated by her angel, so pretty.

She stops spinning, her suit now changed into something sleek if it was supposed to move fast. In the blink of an eye, she fluidly whirls off into the distance, like a bird, eager to fly after a long time breaking away from a long slumber. The chipmunk hummed quietly as she flew, what a sight to Jeanette!

She whips around, doing aerobatic circles, rolls, and loops. Jeanette whistles low at the sight. Her angel sang a quiet sing while she flew:

"Watch out in the fog  
if you can't see where to go, uh-oh"  
"Careful not to fall  
and remember to just take it slow"  
"When the hot sun  
chases WALL-E's fog away"  
"All of his friends will be there"  
"Morning is here,  
everything's fine, dancing and  
laughing all the time"  
"All of your blues  
melting away"  
"As we welcome in  
a brand-new day"  
"When WALL-E is weak,  
it is always a sad sight to see, uh-huh"  
"But, EVE comes to the rescue  
of our little robot when he's weak"  
"WALL-E wakes up  
and he finds himself on Earth"  
"Don't be afraid,  
WALL-E is back"  
"Morning is here,  
everything's fine, dancing and  
laughing all the time"  
"We can play games,  
have lots of fun"  
"WALL-E is sure to  
play with everyone"  
"WALL-E is here,  
everything's fun, laughing  
and playing in the sun"  
"All of your blues  
melting away"  
"With our friend WALL-E it's  
a brand-new day"

"Aw," Jeanette coos when her angel was done singing. She seemed so good, Jeanette could just imagine them singing together, oh how great they'd sound. Jeanette's parents never let her sing, even though she could. Jeanette remembered her parents telling her:

"You'll hurt your throat."

Jeanette loved to sing, you see, especially her favorite song, "Sputtering." Jeanette thought she could teach her angel the words. Oh she'd be happy to! After all, she had a very big heart.

Jeanette remembered the time, she did get a sore throat, but it wasn't from singing. And she recovered quickly thanks to being smart. Jeanette never gave up in recovering that day so she only took one day to recover. Her angel would be so proud of her and how clever she was! Jeanette just couldn't take her eyes off her angel and she couldn't stop thinking of how her life would change.

_Oh, I wish she were my mother. Things would be so easy, _she wondered if she could coax her angel to adopt her. If Jeanette and her angel held paws, Jeanette would no longer be grounded. She had been grounded until she wrote her lines 519, 462 times, so she felt that only the magic of love would change everything for her.

For example, Jeanette would never have to write her lines. Writing them as many times as she was assigned to would take far too long and her fingers would ache from holding the pencil for so long. Now that she'd seen her angel, Jeanette just couldn't take being grounded anymore. She was already tired of writing lines and hated the rules she had to follow.

Too oblivious to notice her paw clipping away a piece of rock from the boulder and hits the ground ever so lightly, only giving off a drip of a pebble...

**KABOOOOM!**

It happened too fast. The rock she hid behind exploded in a bright blue-white flash and deafening crack of thunder.

* * *

Seen from afar, it formed a tiny mushroom cloud, the explosive sound alerted Holly.

Brittany stared down the direction where the sound came from, her high-frequency hearing detected movement behind her; instinct kicked in and she whipped around in a millisecond with a high-powered Type-2 DEW plasma rifle at hand, aimed dead-centered at where she fired a single shot. Her eyes now shielded by a polarized visor and a holographic heads-up-display, activated by her gun's wireless targeting system every time she drew it for better aim. Behind the digitized mask, her angelic blue eyes now apathetic and cold blooded, like the eyes of a trained soldier.

She waited for the smoke to clear, to verify what the immediate threat was and if satisfactorily vaporized.

Apparently, she doesn't want anyone or anything watching her joy flight, the only fun she ever gets on her mission to Earth, or her 'directive.' After being in hibernation for long period, she had to shake the last bits of cryonic sleep out of her system, fast as the instant thawing was. She is still not fully awaken and reactive. The last thing she needed is to be jumped or spied on.

The smoke clears, her weapon still trained on her target, she doesn't move or blink. Only a portion of the bolder still stood, now inscribed with a giant smoldering three-meter wide hole, edge's glowing orange hot and stone turned to glass from the ionized blast.

_Hmm, at least my reflexes are still sharp,_ she thinks to herself as she holsters her plasma rifle to her waist strap with practiced Clint Eastwood style flips, her HUD deactivates, the visor dematerialize into thin air, her eyes now blue and full of sweetness again as if nothing happened.

Brittany returns scanning the environment around her in a gracious state again. She hasn't noticed a terrified chipmunk slightly younger than she was bundled up behind what was left of the boulder, trembling uncontrollably from having missed death by a fraction of an inch from the blast where her head had been.

As a side note, DEW is short for Direct Energy Weapon, a weapons that projectiles comprised forms of pure energy, electromagnetic rays or superheated gas such plasma, pulse sonic, particle beam, carbon lasers and ionized gas which looks like a downsized Covenant plasma rifle from **Halo**. For those who are not familiar with **Halo**, it's a science fiction video game franchise created by **Bungie**, owned and published by **Microsoft Game Studios** that was released on November 15, 2001 (_Wikipedia_

).


	6. Confrontation

Brittany scanned everything everywhere she went, using a small, paper-thin electrophoresis holo-pad emitting rays of blue light that formed a laser grid upon any object she came across. It processed their material make-up, verifying if it has any biologic content. So far, she hasn't found anything yet, only three processing beeps followed by an _Identified: Specimen Negative_ ping from her started her way from the landing site into Sector _NA-001_, going to survey from outskirt to outskirt, to find what she was looking for. Brittany had to do it fast, for she was only given two weeks to scout out five hundred square kilometers of barren land on this polluted rock of a planet. She could enjoy a quick flight, though. She couldn't imagine who could survive out here with such sandstorms, extreme temperatures or the thick chemically tainted air.

Jeanette had never given up on Brittany, for she had lots of perseverance.

Jeanette kept her distance and staying well hidden in the cover of shadows and trash piles, staying behind her for the past couple of hours. She finally stopped shaking from almost blown to smithereens. When she worked up the courage to peek from the smoldering bolder, her angel was gone. Her instincts told her that maybe that angel wasn't a good mother, and her parents had told her that talking to strangers was dangerous. If they were here right now, they'd say,

"You see what happens when you talked to strangers?"

Well, Jeanette was just trying to make a new friend. Just because the angel wouldn't be a good mother doesn't mean Jeanette was ready to give up. Her parents always tell her to give when she doesn't succeed at first.

Holly meets up with Brittany and Brittany gives Holly back to Jeanette.


	7. Right Here

Jeanette follows Brittany into a store, crashes into some carts and makes her a statue in the night. Brittany sees it the next morning, but flies away. Jeanette kicks some pipes and they fall on her.**  
**


	8. Courting

Brittany heard those responses before from her holographic pad. Usually when sent on the yearly reconnaissance missions to various terrestrial planets to find any traces of life forms, from microbiological specimens to full sized plants to verify if the planet is capable of sustaining complex life but hasn't found ONE on _any_ mission she was sent.

In her mind, she was basically sent on some getaways to new worlds for simple joy flights to get the feel of 'freedom' she imagined from this kind of work on top of making glorifying discoveries of life on alien worlds, all she had to do was have fun and look. But the ease of searching for life for glory was a empty promise to this job, having to search countless worlds across astronomical distances for even a tiny trace of life wasn't easy for a privileged cadet. Nothing was easy for only certain few selected were allowed to do exploration outside of their own generation ships. Brittany thought she could become famous to her people by bringing back a microbe of a specimen, and she could goof off if she wanted to. She found no life, _at all, _throughout her line of work. Her drive for fame to become the first person to find a habitable world full of lush, green life waned out by mission after mission with the same _A1-01_ directive and the same result: no plants and nothing to do but fly around. After a week of searching here on Earth of all places, it was getting on her nerves. The mission appointed to Brittany felt more like a 'down to earth' task as she calls it.

Brittany shakes her head as she closes the hood to a rusted pickup truck she scanned. She continued her search to enclosed spaces where living things are likely to be hiding from the harsh extremes in this environment. She tries not to react when she surprisingly gets another reading from inside a toilet booth.

"_Identified: Specimen Negative._"

At least they would have some microbiological development that would be enough to satisfy her scanner's evaluation relay and to end her inane search so she could go back home to the _Axiom_. She guessed wrong. Groaning in frustration, Brittany closes the door to the port-a-potty, contemplating her thoughts.

Home wasn't her favorite place, though most would disagree with her. Her practical husband, Alvin always asked her to have sex, but Brittany didn't want to. Brittany wanted to adopt someone, rather than having sex. But not just anyone. She wanted to adopt someone who was friendly, intelligent, lovely, pretty and lots of determination. Once she saw how harmless Jeanette was, she thought about adopting her. Jeanette had all the features Brittany liked and would probably make the best child for her.

Ever since being born and growing up on the Axiom, Brittany had always wanted to be a mother because she would do a very good job. Whatever child she adopted she'd take care of it. She wouldn't set rules that the child wouldn't like. She would comfort the child in a thunderstorm, for Brittany wanted someone without having sex with Alvin.

Her thoughts were interrupted by yet another _Identified: Specimen Negative_, Brittany

had scanned the inside of a Buy n' Large replica of the Apollo capsule. Soon as she heard that negative chime, she slammed the hatch shut, failing to react not so angrily.

"_Identified: Specimen Negative._"

All through the day she got angrier and angrier by the minute at that sound after hundreds of readings. She finished what she thought would have had productive results was in the cargo hold of an ancient Buy n' Large cargo ship in the late afternoon.

"_Identified: Specimen Negative!_"

_"_Aaaagh!"

Brittany slams the cargo doors with all her might, screaming in frustration as she threw her holographic-pad over the railing and down to the dried up bedrock. Her actions only fueled the fire as she stomped away off the ship to go find her holographic-pad and stopped for the day, not noticing a metallic grating sound from behind her. Before Brittany registered a tugging sensation on her, the circular magnetic disk attached to a cargo crane yanked her off her feet and pulled to the disk, whole body immobilized by the powerful magnetic field.

"What the hell?" she exclaims at what happened.

It hits Brittany that her suit is of magnetized material, made of nanofabricated ceramic gossamer, made for skintight sporty girl looks and as protective suits in the harsh environments of any extraterrestrial landscape. Thin, comfortably smooth, and its own form of clothing almost indistinguishable from Egyptian cotton. It is still metallic regardless of its characteristic structure.

She tries to budge but to no avail. Still infuriated, she fidgets violently and flings around trying to break free. She activates her antigravity servomechanism, trying to fly away, maybe swing with enough momentum to brake free. She almost makes it, but the magnet is far too strong.

_What idiot ever put this magnetic crane up for lifting cargo but unable to take it off?_ she thinks, cursing all sorts of things in her mind.

After a few minutes of trying, Brittany finally lost whatever patience she had left. She wrestles her hand for the plasma rifle strapped to her waist. She struggles as she pries it out of its harness, as it is also metallic. Save for she has the barrel aimed at the magnet, set to low power so she doesn't blow herself up. She closes her eyes and pulls the bolt of plasma melts through the magnet, releasing Brittany as she stops from falling with her antigravity free to release all her rage and anger from the day of not finding what she's looking for on the ship, Eve unloads discharge after discharge of ionized gas projectiles, screaming and cursing at the freighter, blasting full power at the hull, superstructure, and especially the crane, twice for good measure. One shot hits the petroleum fuel tanks, instantly the ship lights up in a ball of fire as she continues firing at the disintegrated ship in a blind rage. The raining fireball's debris and her stray plasma blasts causes nearby ships to explode as well. Brittany's anger is lighting up the dead valley like Hiroshima.

Jeanette watches her angel in curiosity. She'd seen grumpy characters like this, but she never knew they could cry. Now that she'd seen Brittany like this, she was beginning to build up her courage. Of course, Jeanette never gave up trying to be friends with Brittany. Her parents have told her that some people can try for years and they never learn. Jeanette realized if that was true, she needed someone to comfort her. Someone like Brittany...

Jeanette saw Brittany's holographic-pad. Thanks to her parents, Jeanette knew she shouldn't take things that aren't hers. But Brittany seemed to have lost it, Jeanette decides she'd give it back.

She makes her way to the one, the one who probably would adopt her and get her ungrounded, the one with the magic of love, not without being so excited. She'd finally be ungrounded after 700 years!

Brittany sat there sadly with her face buried in her gloved paws. She wished she could find a plant and a child without having sex.

Slow footsteps caught her attention. Could this be her child?

Brittany and Jeanette introduce themselves and try something together:

"Three little birds  
sat on my window"  
"And they told me  
I don't need to  
worry"  
"Uh-huh, girl, put your  
records on"  
"Tell me your favorite song,  
you go ahead let your hair down"  
"Go ahead,  
let your hair down"  
"Sapphire and faded jeans,  
I hope you get your dreams"  
"Just go ahead,  
let your hair down"

Then, a sandstorm comes. Jeanette leads Brittany to shelter.


	9. One Girl's Trash Is Another's Treasure

First, Jeanette shows Brittany into her house and shows her all kinds of things, including Combination, her favorite movie. After the dance and dinner, Jeanette shows Brittany the plant she'd found. Brittany immediately take away from her and shuts down inside a glass pod. Jeanette tries to wake her, but it's no use.


	10. Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head

Come morning, twilight creeping over the eastern horizon, the sandstorm has calmed down overnight but Jeanette hasn't. Since Brittany put herself into hibernation, Jeanette was wide awake and worried sick, thinking Brittany was hurt or Jeanette did something wrong, making her shut herself off from Jeanette. Since then she tried to wake her angel, but no avail. Jeanette still tries, not willing to give up on her only friend despite the fact Brittany was chronically frozen in place and clinically dead, unresponsive to Jeanette's cries.

She sat there staring at Brittany's pod for hours after countless attempts of pounding on it to wake her. She kept thinking of how to get her angel out, to bring her out of the freezing shell and back to life. But how? She did not know...

With the sun now above the horizon, Jeanette moved, after getting her helmet on, labored Brittany's cryogenic tube outside, to where she would let the sun shine on the strips on her back. Brittany's pod was, not bulky, but very heavy around three hundred fifty pounds because the density of the great cytogenetic residual ice inside the pod combined with the density of Brittany's frozen solid body. It took her an hour or two of pushing the pod out of the treedome, up the dome part and into the sunlight. Writing her lines didn't help Jeanette take her mind off Brittany, but she at least got Brittany into the sun's warm rays in the expectation for her to awake.

All Jeanette could do was wait and see if the sun could melt through the pod's -100̊° C chassis. She stood by Brittany, staring at the frozen figure of her, waiting for the ice to thaw out and let her go, so Jeanette could see her angel's warm eyes and hear her voice again.

She lets those happy results run through her head as she waits patiently….

…And waits… …and waits… …and waits…

* * *

By now, the heat of midday's sun beats down on the surface as hot as it will irradiate. It's almost unbearable, even for Jeanette. Her parents have told her not to go out on days like this because she would get a sunburn. She sat down the sizzling concrete of the broken bridge. Her fur protects her from a sunburn, but she sweats and her mouth crisp dry from dehydration. Jeanette doesn't care for she's more concerned for Brittany waking up any moment, the same thought that's been running through her for the past few hours.

She looks back up at the pod where Brittany's still frozen as she was this morning. Outside air temperatures have hit 50˚C or 122̊°F and not a single drop of condensation dripped from her pod. Jeanette drops her head in disappointment, nothing after hours of waiting, nothing has happened.

_Patience, _she told herself, reassured her angel would eventually thaw.

It's almost sundown, Jeanette only slightly bored and Brittany is where she was at, motionlessly frozen in her pod where Jeanette put it, its green light still pulsating. She fiddles with her claws on the still sizzling ground, wondering if she could work her way through the pod to release Brittany. As she stares at her well-growing claws, she hears rumbling in the distance.

She looks up to see darkness spread across the horizon. It wasn't a sandstorm, for the winds did not kick up dust. These columns of clouds were all dark grey and towered high in the sky. Flashes of light could be seen in the blackness, it's where the soft earthshaking sounds are coming from.

"Uh oh," she realizes it's a thunderstorm.

It seems it will be over them by nightfall, which is not long. Though they are not as powerful or deadly as a thunderstorm, it is still serious to find shelter because of flooding and lightning. She is afraid of thunderstorms, but will not show it in front of Brittany.

Jeanette has no idea how durable Brittany's pod is against the weather but just because it's high-tech doesn't mean it can last out here. She won't have time to move Brittany back into the dome. Her pod is too heavy to move because of the slopes of the glass, it might fall on her if she tries to move it. Worse, she might hurt Brittany inside it.

Jeanette remembers she has some anti-rain devices in her treedome. She was told they were umbrellas, but she only had one.

Considering the situation, she could use it to protect Brittany herself. Her parents have told her that miracles can't happen, but she always has faith for it. Jeanette has forgotten what it felt like for rain to pour on her chocolate brown fur and she never bathed since her parents died. Her parents have told her that rain would sting. Actually, the rain could be good since she was out in the heat all day.

She protects Brittany from the rain and a sandstorm and takes her for a love-skate, just like in Combination and watch a sunset. Jeanette tries to hold Brittany's paw, but her paw gets stuck. Later that night, Jeanette tries to wake Brittany up by playing her favorite game: Sarge's Boot Camp. But that doesn't work, so she heads to work the next morning.


	11. IT'S ADVENTURE TIME!

Jeanette's movements are slow that day. Normally, she could shovel and compact several cubes in just a minute but her depression makes minutes seem hours as she finishes her first trash cube in ten minutes of lazy scooping. She just stops, feeling there is no energy or spirit within her to carry out her duties. Even Holly sensed her mistress' unrest.

Jeanette pulls out her Zippy lighter from her front pocket and flicks it on just how Brittany showed her.

Jeanette stares at the tiny flame, thinking about her angel as memories of that evening ran through her mind, the only time she had interacted with another chipmunk, a lovely one no less. Jeanette's parents have always told her that fun can't last forever. They told her that sometimes she'd have to get right back to work because her friends moved away. They told her that once her friends moved away, they can't be her friends anymore. They told her about death. They told her that once people die, you'll never see them again. They told her that people die for all kinds of reasons. They also told her that some people have medical issues and she'd have to be nice to them. This happened once at summer camp. All her camp mates had been born with medical issues. Which meant, Jeanette was the only one who could participate in any dance activities. Although once, she tries to encourage one of her camp mates to try. She said:

"Come on, you can do it."

Her camp mate had the same kind of voice as her favorite character from Combination. When he tried to do the dance move she could do easily, his trick-or-lock knees, or tire-knees as she likes to call it, made sort of a lock sound that caused pain to run through him.

"Ow!"

Hearing him say it like that made Jeanette think of two things:

One, the way her camp mate said "ow" reminded her of when she was trying to win Sarge's Boot Camp. Whenever she tried to turn, she kept hitting the walls. Then, the character would say "ow" just the way her camp mate said it. Those way of saying ouch sounded exactly the same. Of course, sometimes the character would tell her to "watch the bolt" which the only difference in that. When Jeanette was with Brittany, she had to "watch the gun" even though Brittany never had to remind her to.

Two, her suit. She was wearing it today along with her helmet. Her helmet gives her fresh air to breath because the air on Earth was too polluted at the moment. When the Earth's air gets fresh again, then she wouldn't need it anymore. However, her parents are always telling her safety first. They hate to hear her say "ow" Whenever she did, even when it was just a small cut that just needed a bandage, her parents would send her to the hospital. Once the police called them and said, "Hey, you can't do that anymore," they told Jeanette that she wasn't allowed outside anymore. They told her to be careful around everything! Something Jeanette knew that her parents didn't was that not everything was dangerous. As for her suit, it was especially built to protect her from anything. This way, she could go outside without ever having to worry about getting hurt. With it, she could be in her favorite game and she'd never have to say ouch. Since it was more important to have fresh air, her helmet was more important than her suit.

Someone once told her that it's not easy to move on crutches. Also, she was told that if someone tells you to be careful, it means they care about you. It sure was comforting to know her parents cared about her. The only problem was that they were being too careful with her.

An earthquake resounds through the city. Jeanette snaps back into reality, so lost she can't figure out what's happening until she notices the accelerating wind blew the lighter's flame out. She knew something was out of place. Earthquakes don't cause such strong winds.

A familiar roaring sound echoes from somewhere.

_A building collapsing? Is that what causing all this? _she wonders.

Holly wiggled her antennae at the light emerging from the sky.

Jeanette races to Brittany's rocket and jumps on. The ship takes off with both Brittany and Jeanette. Holly watches from the ground, flapping her wings. The ship blasts off into space.


	12. Instersteller Travels

Soaring through the stratosphere at hypersonic speeds, the _Axiom Reconnaissance Vehicle_blasted through columns of polluted clouds as it accelerates to achieve escape velocity necessary to break free of Earth's gravity.

Jeanette immediately regrets jumping onboard, for she fought desperately against the G-forces on her body; but she's wearing her suit, so she's only worried about the G-forceson her body and that's it.

Jeanette flies through space. She sees the moon, the sun (she takes her suit and shirts off to he sun can warm the strips on her back) and Saturn. Jeanette runs her paw through the rocks. Then Jeanette sees a weird shape.

What is it?

She'll find out soon enough.


	13. STOWAWAY On Deck

There's something hidden within the purple nebula. Whatever it is, it's big.

_A planet?_ No, it's not spherical.

_A planetoid? An asteroid? _Jeanette speculates, trying to make out its shape, looking strangely familiar.

As the _Axiom Reconnaissance Vehicle_ clears through the purple gases clouds, Jeanette can see it clearly, she gasps when she realizes it is an enormous starship.

It must be five kilometers long from bow tip to aft tip, and its superstructure from the keel to it's spire must be at least seven kilometers high. It's primarily designed like Earth's ancient oceanic cruise liners, a fat hull with thousands, maybe millions of viewports, a streamlined superstructure and communications tower and traditional designed bow and stern. It had another superstructure to it, a sort of engineering spire that runs down from the keel that gives the vessel a look of a space station attached to it. Two massive Ion Drive engines were on each side, with propulsive motors a hundred times bigger than the _Axiom Reconnaissance Vehicle_. On the bow's starboard side, the side the _Axiom Reconnaissance Vehicle_ is approaching, bore the unmistakable red circle, white and blue lettering of the Buy N' Large logo. It's a Buy n' Large star liner, but not just any, it must be a flagship, the largest of the fleet.

Jeanette notices the christened name above the logo and confirms its familiarity.

"Buy n' Large's_ AXIOM SL-AX-1001_."

The very same ship Jeanette has heard about, back on Earth. Her parents have said that she should never trust an ad. Jeanette never knew that this ad was true.

The _Axiom Reconnaissance Vehicle_ is about a kilometer away but the _Axiom_ filled the cockpit view. Jeanette stares almost straight up at it already dwarfed in the recon ship like an oil tanker against a dingy.

The recon ship slows down as it lines up next to the _Axiom_.

"Whoa," Jeanette steps back, thinking they were going to hit but she actually felt a bit worried standing next to that goliath.

The side of the _Axiom's_ large sliding fifty by a hundred meter doors opens up, big enough for the _Axiom Reconnaissance Vehicle_ to fit. They were going to dock.

Two, smaller unmanned tug ships emerge from the opened bay and pass around the _Axiom Reconnaissance Vehicle_ Jeanette wonders if she had to do anything. Here in the control room, did she had to pilot the thing inside? No way, she literally had no idea what to do.

The smaller ships made way for the _Axiom Reconnaissance Vehicle_ as they each emitted blue tractor beams of light on the ship, guiding it in.

Jeanette stays frozen in place, floating in zero gravity, clasping the chair making sure she didn't do anything erroneous.

The doors to the bay closed with a hiss of air as the docking bay depressurizes.

The _Axiom Reconnaissance Vehicle_ encounters locking clamps, the ship braces into place with a satisfying clink. The tug rockets disengage the tractor beam, the recon ship slides down a tad as its weight is supported.

Jeanette feels artificial gravity kick in as she falls to the cockpit floor below. Since Jeanette had taken her suit off, she got hurt, except for her head. All she wore was her purple skirt and her air helmet.

"Ow." she lands hard.

Jeanette tries to stand but keeps falling over, feeling no strength in her to support her own weight, it almost hurts to try, not understanding why. She'd been wearing her air suit an helmet. She couldn't get hurt with those on. It was like being made of metal. Getting hurt was impossible.

She clasps onto the side viewport, trying to pull herself up to relay her new surroundings. The inside of the docking bay was unlike anything Jeanette had ever seen, a totally opposite environment she is from. It was all clean, brightly lit sterile, advanced, well maintained and robotics everywhere. She notices no chipmunk crew were present at all, everything here was ungirded. Jeanette's parents have told her those little words to make it more scary for her: "Mm-hm, it's scary, isn't it?" Jeanette couldn't believe that this was Brittany's home.

The deck suddenly becomes bustling with mechanical activity. Robotic arms, robotic devices, robotic equipment, robotic everything tended to the recon ship in all directions like an automated facility show, refueling its engines, running diagnostics on its systems, unloading cargo, repairing its—

Wait! One of the things unloading was Brittany's pod, along with the other frozen Motherly scouts.

"Brittany!" Jeanette tries to gather her slowly returning strength to get to the angel. She crawls and clasps her way to the open hatch. Jeanette manages to get enough strength to stand.

A noise startles her. She notices sounds and movement coming from out of the deck next to Brittany's pod, placed along with the other pods.

She hides behind one of the cryogenic pods, listening closely to the sounds and movement. An elevator emerges from the deck, and there stood chipmunks!

… … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … …

A squad of four post-recon cleaners with different outfits on.

One of them was shorter than Jeanette or Brittany. She wore a white helmet and had pigtails in her fur. Her eyes were green, but she was wearing yellow glowing goggles. She also wore a dress that said "M-O" on the bottom of the front side and was holding a scrub brush. Her paws were hard to see. Her dress said "M-O" but her name was Eleanor. She was a smidge shorter than her crew. She also had lots of sterilization fluid strapped to her back. She was the captain of her crew, too. Jeanette had heard about captains before in pirate war movies. Her parents had forced her to watch it. There were more chipmunks behind her. They seemed to be having as much trouble paying attention as Jeanette did 700 years ago.

"Alright, follow me. Whoa, whoa! WHOA! Stop!" she steps off the elevator but tries to stay in sync with an awaiting lighted path at their feet."Moe! Come On! It's just a frickin' guide path. Let's just get the job done!" The crewmember with a vacuum device protests to Eleanor's strict routine.

"Yeah, stop being such an O.C.!" Another cleaner shouts.

"Shut up! We don't move unless our path is cleared to go!" Eleanor shouts back to them.

Sure enough, the directed path to Brittany's pod pinged on and lead to her.

"Alright, let's go!" Eleanor clears them to make their way over to Brittany's lowered pod.

"Shrink," the vacuum cleaner, whose name was Violet says under her breath, but that didn't go unheard by Eleanor.

She hated being joked about her height because she was shorter than Brittany and a little bit shorter than her crew.

"I heard that! It's not funny!" Eleanor says defensively as the other three laughs at her.

But she shouldn't let it get to her, for she had to stay focused and look professional, in order to compensate for the name-calling.

Eleanor and Jeanette meet, talk to each other, Theodore comes and takes Brittany away. Jeanette follows. Eleanor cleans Jeanette's footprints, scrubbing as she goes.


	14. The AXIOM

Jeanette follows the tram to the main deck where she sees lots of humans saying really bad words all the time. She rescues one human, turns off a screen that belongs to another and finally catches up to Brittany and Theodore in the hover tram.


	15. BRIDGE LOBBY: Part 1

The monorail passes through another tunnel under a holographic-sign: **MAIN DECK**–TO–**LIDO DECK**.

This deck is a massive artificial paradise with hundreds of floors of beach house styled living quarters in a ring surrounding a vast circular swimming pool with adjacent spas and holographic palm trees all around it. There are hundreds of other passengers here. None of them are in the water. All of them sat by the poolside, under umbrellas with their food-drink cups, still hypnotized to their holographic-screen chairs.

_Figures, _Jeanette wondered why everyone swore.

The monorail comes to a stop in the front of the **LIDO DECK** where there's a large Buy n' Large logo on the floor, and an entrance to the **BRIDGE LOBBY**. Jeanette looks up from the entrance to see a towering spire. At the top was a windowed observation deck built into the ceiling, it must be where they're going.

Brittany's tram got off towards the entrance with Jeanette staying out of Chief Theodore's sight, wondering what's going to be up there.

… … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … …

Meanwhile, Mary and the other passengers leave the monorail. The other passengers go about their business on their path lines with Mary taking in her surroundings. She moves about freely, fascinated at everything she sees of the massive ship.

She gasps as she oversees the **LIDO DECK**.

"I didn't know we had a pool!"

Brittany's tram enters a vast hall, in the base of the control center spire. It's mostly empty, except for a single receptionist desk in front of the elevator to the **BRIDGE** guarded by an impenetrable blue force field with holographic letters scrolled over it reading **BRIDGE ACCESS- AUTHORIZED PERSONNELS ONLY**.The tram stops in front of the desk. Jeanette still remains hidden, risks a look over the pod to see why they have stopped. At the desk was a red squirrel (Olivia). She wasn't as perky as she used to be. She would crack her knuckles occasionally with that sad look on her face. She looks up when Chief Theodore passes through.

"Excuse me." Theodore gets a little impatient.

She unglues her sight from her screen, finally stopped typing when she realizes who was addressing her.

"Oh! My apologies Master Chief Theodore, sir! What can I do for you?" she salutes him. He gets straight to it.

"I need to get to the **BRIDGE**, it's urgent."

Olivia looks at the pod questioningly.

"May I ask why, sir?" she asks kindly while still at attention.

"That's classified. I'm under orders from Commander Alvin to report to him immediately."

"I understand, sir, but I am required to ask for authoriza-"

"I said I was ordered to report to the **BRIDGE** by the first officer immediately, and that means now!" Theodore orders her to let him pass, Olivia is just doing her job but this is far more important.

"Yes sir," Olivia punches in a command and the security field guarding the elevator deactivates. Theodore drives the tram right past her and into the elevator.

Olivia was just about to return to her original duty when Olivia notices someone clinging to the back of the tram.

"Huh?" she looks at the spectacled brown chipmunk. She has never seen anybody like her before.

"Hello," Jeanette says quietly, giving her a friendly wave. She didn't seem like much of someone to be afraid of besides Theodore.

Olivia is baffled, unsure of how to respond to this unfamiliar chipmunk. Before she could, the elevator doors close as it rises toward the **BRIDGE**.

"Huh, weird," she says to herself.

_Out of the ordinary indeed,_ _but far better than being ordered at by the chief_, she thought.


	16. Captain Simon On Deck

Fifty meters, one hundred meters, two hundred meters . . . the transparent elevator rose higher and higher. Jeanette was on the side facing the **LIDO DECK**. The view is great, the higher they go, the more the inside of the ship they could see, from the base of the **LOBBY** to the rear of the **MAIN DECK**. Jeanette had forgotten she was afraid of heights. Because of her parents, Jeanette had been lectured for being scared of heights and the sight of the deck lured her away from her acrophobia.

Suddenly the view goes dark. They reached the top of the tower. The elevator doors open and the tram slowly hover into the **BRIDGE**.

The large, air conditioned circular room dimly lit, the elevator rose from the center of it. One side of the **BRIDGE** was a wide glass window facing out into space and the other side was also a vast viewport overlooking the bright interior of the _Axiom_, you could see the entire inside of the ship from up there. Jeanette looks around. The surfaces of everything polished, hundreds of multicolored control consoles surrounded the walls in a large circle. Dials, gauges, charts, readouts, screens, buttons, switches, lights, beeps, and sound everywhere; but it was all very dim and very quiet, a soothing atmosphere.

Something catches Jeanette eye, or rather, someone.

A sole figure on a track-stick. A special thing where you can ride on the ceiling. It's like a wheelchair, but without wheels.

The tram stops, Chief Theodore standing at attention.

"Master Chief Theodore reporting, sir!" he salutes the chipmunk, who slides over.

First Officer Alvin was strapped in his track-stick, wearing his red hoodie with the A on it. He had brown fur and brown eyes. On his track-stick was a shock-stick that electrocutes things.

The inexpressive eyes reminded Jeanette of Brittany's eyes when she tried to blast her, but this is Alvin's natural look: empathetic. Alvin seemed to be a little strict. Maybe if he knew Jeanette better, he would change his mind. Despite his strict looks, he seems to be the perfect father for Jeanette, plus maybe he'd brighten up once they got to know each other.

Alvin wakes up Simon. After morning announcements, Brittany wakes up in her school clothes. Simon looks at her but there's no plant, Brittany blames Jeanette for it. Theodore drives them to the repair ward.


	17. BRIDGE LOBBY Part 2

Olivia's mind wondered, her warped task of receptionist duties slowed by the strange chipmunk she saw earlier.

The elevator doors to the **BRIDGE LOBBY** opened. Chief Theodore's tram hovers off without giving notice to Olivia.

When she looked to see the tram leave, she sees the very strange chipmunk she met. Jeanette's gloved paws together with Brittany.

Brittany refuses to look at Jeanette.

Simon analyzes the dirt left by Jeanette's handshake. He enjoys it and does all kinds of research on the Earth. First Earth, then sea.

Jeanette and Brittany arrive at the Ward.


	18. WARD

Somewhere in the _Axiom'_s **SERVICE LEVELS**, Eleanor scrubbed and sterilized, scrubbed and sterilized . . . scrubbed and sterilized some more. As she had been doing for the past few hours; it took awhile to do this heavy duty procedure, especially for deep dirt cleaning to obliterate every single microscopic bacterium in footprints.

This was for that dirty chipmunk's footprints. She had been wearing boots at the time, but now she wasn't. She was wearing her school clothes and a helmet that Brittany gave her.

"_FOREIGN CONTAMINANT!_" Eleanor's heads-up detector repeated for the hundredth-something time.

"I know!" she screamed at her visor's HUD.

She furiously scrubbed harder and harder on every footprint she came across whenever she reminded herself of her directive.

"_FOREIGN CONTAMINANT!_"

"I know! It's disgusting, and I will clean it!"

The HUD repeated the identification of foreign contamination after every few seconds, sights still set on Jeanette's boot marks and never broke away to see anything else.

Eleanor cuts across a maglev path line, without looking of course.

"Hey, look out!" the bushy-tailed chipmunk of a freighter screamed, stopping before Eleanor abruptly. More hover-vehicles crashed into the freighter, a traffic pile up ensues in his wake. The drivers fall out, holding their heads and necks in injury.

"Watch where you're going, kid!" one of them yells.

Eleanor doesn't pay any mind to them, for she had a duty to fulfill. All she could think about now was where and how far did that dirty chipmunk go in this ship. She figured she'll find her soon enough by just keep cleaning her tracks, down to the last footprint and by Forthwright was she going to get the cleaning of her life when Eleanor finds her!

… … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … …

…Eleanor fails miserably to notice Jeanette and Brittany's tram passing right by her towards the medical center…

Jeanette thought she saw a familiar figure zoom right by, even as they were zipping through the maglev paths at high speed.

_Was that the Eleanor from the docking bay?_

Eh, doesn't matter, she is more concerned where the tram was going. They have been moving about the path lines from the **BRIDGE** to the '**WARD**' as Captain Simon called it. She eyes Brittany from the corner of her peripheral view. They have been sitting in awkward silence for almost an hour. Her angry express only dimmed slightly, still pretty sour towards her. The pain in her side from Brittany's elbowing her rib flared up and down as they went on.

Though she set aside her physical injuries, her head was okay thanks to the helmet Brittany gave her. But she still hoped Brittany would speak to her again.

She put her hands on her helmet.

_Oh how much longer until they get to the 'WARD?'_

The hover-tram comes to a stop. Jeanette takes her hands off her helmet to see they have reached a set of doors that read '_AXIOM _**MEDICAL CLINIC AND EVALUATION CENTER**.'

Jeanette's question answered, they've reached the ship's medical center, or also known as the '**WARD**.'

… … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … …

The doors open to reveal a vast, clean-kept facility lined with rows upon rows of individual holding cells.

Jeanette looks around, each one of the patient holding room's entrances blocked off by transparent force fields. The **WARD** is full of activity. Many sick patients, lots of them were mentally ill patients jumping, bouncing around, goofing off and doctors, orderlies, and other staff members were running around to tend to each one of them.

Two medical doctors in white coats walk up to the tram, greeting Chief Theodore and Brittany. She didn't answer back.

One of them pulls out a holographic-data pad.

"Hello, chief, I assume this must be Lieutenant Brittany you wanted us to examine?"

"That is correct, doctor, it's a long story but I believe you were already informed about her delusional story up on the **BRIDGE**."

The doctor begins typing into his pad.

"Yes, we received all that and we will run a few tests to find out if it's any psychosis to worry about. And oh! She is hurt! Bandage her, quick! She's on my list!" he points toward Jeanette.

"Oh, she got a pain in her side when Brittany elbowed her. She says her name is 'Jeanette'. But I don't know what list you're talking about."

"She is on my list of passengers who will die from getting hurt in anyway." the staff says.

"Well, I guess you could bandage her. She followed us to the**BRIDGE**, which is a major security breach. Therefore, we sent her here for the sidelines, but when she said 'ow' I realized that she really needs a doctor. Oh, but Simon wanted her to be 'cleaned.'"

"I see, well first we will run a DNA analysis to find out who she is, then we'll bandage her side and we'll give her a bath, hahaha," the doctor chuckles at Jeanette's filthy appearance, she felt a little offended. The doctor types something into his data pad and two red holographic arm straps appeared out of the data pad."Well, sir, go ahead and leave them with us and well send Captain Simon some results regarding these two."

"Thank you, doc," with that done, Theodore forces Jeanette and Brittany off the tram and he departs the medical center.

The doctors place an irremovable red arm strap around Brittany's right arm. It's a psychiatric patient identification strap to let others know who she is and that she belongs here, a form of a tracking device.

"Alrighty, Lieutenant Brittany, come with me." One doctor takes her over to another room, giving her a sedative injection for the examination. Jeanette grows worried when she sees this, tries to call out to her angel.

"Brittany!"

The other doctor starts on her.

"Okay, 'Ms. Jeanette,' let's get started." He takes off her jacket and begins to bandage her; Jeanette winces because he touched her side.

"Careful, that smarts!"

"Sorry about that. I'll be as gentle as I can." he continues to bandage her but Jeanette keeps wincing at the pain from her side being touched.

"Ugh, don't be so difficult!" He is almost done with her bandage. Jeanette can't stay still because it hurts.

"All done. Now be careful with your side." he pulls out her strap, Jeanette goes wide eyed scared.

Just as the doctor was going to put it on her arm, Jeanette kicks the doctor's hand, forcing the needle into the doctor's neck instead.

"OW! Oh god! That really, REALLY. . . reallyyy . . . hurrrrrrr . . . ooooohhhhhhhhhhh..." He falls to the floor unconscious. Jeanette runs off into the **WARD** after Brittany.

Jeanette is suddenly stopped in her tracks by a white chipmunk. This chipmunk wore a pink bike helmet and a metal dress which was also pink. She had an armful of make-up tools. Her name was Betty. She seemed to be high on sugar which was why Jeanette's parents don't let her eat any treats. She aimlessly applied cosmetic makeup on Jeanette's face at incredible speed.

"What can I do for ya? Aaahh, jjjjjjjust a t-trim? Just a trim? A trim? Trim? Uh-huh!"

Jeanette tried to break free from Betty, but her white powdery brushes covered her helmet so she couldn't see.

She stopped her frantic applying and holds up a mirror to Jeanette's face.

"You look gorgeous sweetheart!"

Jeanette gasped at the hideous sight of herself. On her helmet was a some eyeshadow where her eyes were and pink spot where her cheeks are and lipstick where her mouth is. She couldn't see her face at all. She looked so funny, she almost giggled. She turns to Betty looking at her half-insane/half-pleading for a response.

"I-It-It looks...really good," she nervous yet generously, not wanting to hurt her feelings about her misapplying, not that she applied cosmetics on a girl.

Two orderlies suddenly grabbed Jeanette by the arms, dragging her to a holding cell.

"Ow! Watch my side!"

"Scream all you want, kid. None of your friends can hear you." one of said in a very serious voice as they dragged Jeanette away, Betty felt sorry for her new friend.

"Look what you did! You made her cry." Betty told the two chipmunks dragging Jeanette.

The two orderlies ignored it as they pushed Jeanette into a tiny room.

"The doctor will be along here shortly, hopefully as soon as he wakes up from the little coma you just put him into. You will be given a genetic examination…and one heck of a bubble bath, hahaha!"

As they walked away laughing, a blue force field seals Jeanette in.

"Let me out!" she demands angrily, pounding on the transparent wall.

She turns around to see two other patients in the confined quarters, both had red arm bands but they didn't have bandages like she did.

One of them wore a grey jumpsuit that was just like an artist's smock. She carried a paintbrush in one hand and a bucket in the other. Her tail was covered in yellow paint. Her name was Pamela. She was flinging her paintbrush so fast, she splashed Jeanette, causing stains on her bandages and her helmet to add to her make-up mess.

The other patient was riding a vacuum with grey rags on. Her name was Violet. She seemed to be down with a cold, for she wheezed and coughed, before Jeanette could say anything, Violet sneezed. Dust and spittle sprays all over Jeanette.

Jeanette shook the dust, paint, spit and make up off.

"Uh-aw," Violet coughed.

"I-I-I-I'm tho thowy about that," Violet apologized, her accent affected by a stuffy nose and her diminished English. She was handicapped.

"That's okay," Jeanette sputtered as she shook the paint and the dust away.

"I'm Violet. You looked funny when you..." she coughs again.

"...thook the paint off."

"My name is Jeanette," she shakes Violet's hand.

Violet points to Pamela.

"And that'th Pamma, she liketh to paint'th alt'th, but she geth a little too crathy without nothing to paint."

"I see." Jeanette looks outside the transparent force field.

"What is this place?" she asks Violet.

"It'th a bad pwath, you go hea when you'a thick and need to get betther, but the doctherth' are mean an they make fun'vuth," Violet replied with her stuffed nose and speech impediment.

Jeanette looked around. Cells were full of patients. They were all wearing straps on their arms and crying out in pain. Some patients were hitting themselves with objects. One patient was whacking golf balls in random directions.

The one cell that got Jeanette's attention were the '_Volatile_' patients, one massager named Michelle flailed her arms and legs in all directions, spinning and packing a very strong punch into other patients and staff members, causing them to bleed. Ten orderlies rush into her cell, struggling furiously to pin her to the floor. Before she could break free, one staff member straps an energy-binding straitjacket, restraining her securely. She still resisted, trying to attack the orderlies. They pull out an electroshock baton, stunning her to subdue her. They half laughed in relief that she was subdued and half winced at the pain from her powerful punch.

Jeanette was stunned at how cruel these medical doctors and staff can be to these poor patients. They were even worse than her parents, by beating, mocking, and labeling them.

The energy barrier to '_Foreign Contamination_' where Jeanette was held deactivates. The same doctor that bandaged Jeanette's aching side wore another one around his neck entered.

"All right, Jeanette, before I can bathe you and 'repay' you for putting me into a little nap!…" he hissed, clearly mad.

"…I need to take a few tissue samples for your DNA profiling analysis upon the captain Simon's orders."

He took a strip of bandage off Jeanette's side, lifted up her shirts slightly and tapped her side with a needle.

Jeanette backs away from the doctor.

"It's okay, I just need to take a sample, it won't hurt you, I promise," the doctor coldly replies.

The doctor inserts the needle more in Jeanette's side. At the exact moment, Jeanette notices Brittany being escorted behind a fogged glass door, to the: **DIAGNOSTICS AND EVALUTION** room.

"BRITTANY!" she shouts as the doctor extracts Jeanette's blood.

"Shut up, kid!" the doctor replies.

Brittany sat on one of the hospital beds in the '_Diagnostics and Evaluation_' room. She looked around the big, circular room with individual exam stations. Each had a bed, a table, and a rack of state-of-the-art medical equipment and tools. The giant fogged, glass door offered them semi-privacy but the medical stations and patients were openly visible. There were several tests being conducted around here. One chipmunk, a female wearing lots of umbrellas, on her head, on her wrists, on her ankles and as a skirt screamed "IT'S ON MY LIST!" as doctors tried to take an umbrella off her, they back off and the chipmunk calms down. In another station, a female access-'munk with stress induced panic attacks tried properly deify a crash test doll.

"C-cccc-Clear! CLEAR!" She closes her eyes and places the defibrillator on the dolls face, catching fire.

Brittany felt embarrassed to be here. She couldn't stand to be around these-these... reject-'munks. They were far down the ladder as borderline retarded menial workers. She is a hundred eighty intelligent Extraterrestrial Vegetation Reconiassance & Evaluation scout for Forthright's sake, the best of the best. She was practically humiliated to be here because she told the truth, she _saw _the plant and even brought it _with_ her but the fates were against her for no explanatory reason and reduced to a section eight.

There is no way she could be brought down to this level in need of psychological evaluation; which will permanently go into her records, thereby tainting her flawless service. That misconduct of her duty could end up with at the very least an emendation if not a court marshal. Worse, if word gets out and it probably will, her crewmembers and friends will spread gossip of her for the deceit in the most hush-hush of tasks of searching Earth. Especially if they see her in this very room full of degenerates, she'll be labeled as one of them. She will be isolated and ridiculed behind her back for the rest of her natural life.

She cursed Commander Alvin for sending her here. Cursing Captain Simon for being convinced by that oh-so-smart and uptight first officer to order her to be sent here. She cursed the idea of nobody believing they would ever find a plant at the point they stopped believing in finding a habitable planet.

Most of all, she cursed Jeanette for causing all her troubles from somehow stealing and losing the plant to her ending up with the consequences of a false alarm.

No matter how she wondered on how in the cosmos Jeanette got onboard this ship and why, she was going to make that helmet-girl pay dearly for this humiliating evaluation.

"Alrighty, Lieutenant Brittany…" a naval psychopathologist prepares her testing, gathering his neural equipment and gloves.

"…Let's see if we can figure out what's up with you today."

"Like I said before, I am not losing my mind!" she annoyingly denies.

"I understand you don't want to do this, lieutenant, but we can only be sure you are clean by a full physical diagnosis."

Brittany sighs, he's right.

"Oh, alright, fine. Let's just get it over with." Of course, even though she knew she wasn't crazy or lying, they had to know somehow.

"Okay then, let's start with a physical."

Without a word, Brittany takes off her utility belt, plasma rifle, antigravity boots and torso piece, setting them down on the station entrance table. Then she strips off her nanotech-suit, down to her pink school outfit, revealing the perfectly tuned light skin of her tight athletic body, feminine muscle curvatures more alluring without the suit. After that, the doctor feels her body up and down, touching her orange fur and touching her bushy tail which waved in the air.

"Okay, no freezer burn, elephantiasis, or runaway marrow growths. Now lets check your senses."

He pulls out an eyesight test card with variable size letters.

Jeanette watches everything the doctors do to Brittany. When they're about to give her a shot, Jeanette runs in, pulls Brittany's gun out and shoots the computer, causing all the rejects to go free. They rush inside, pick up Jeanette and carry her on their shoulders. Jeanette sings Hot n Cold as the rejects carry her away. Brittany puts on her pink school clothes and her helmet, leaving the mask open and leaving behind the blue see-through goggles. She takes unity belt. When Jeanette's song is over, she is stopped by police munks who shout "halt!" Jeanette cowers up. Brittany appears and grabs her gun away from Jeanette. Their photo gets taken and news spreads around the ship. They are now rouge chipmunks. Brittany grabs Jeanette and carries her away. She decides to send her back to Earth.


	19. Of The Wanted And The Revolt

The ship's security network was a beehive of activity. Stewards, the police/servants of the _Axiom_, were mobilizing in response to the **WARD** outbreak.

The stewards are all genetically engineered clones of each other, created for the purpose of having an obedient, and mass produced multitasking crew force. They each had the same cloned DNA, equal height, equivalent physical features, matching uniforms, the same voices and even their personalities were alike. The only differences among themselves were assigned ranks.

A squad of twenty men armed for riot control ran down the **AFT MAINTENANCE** pathways at high speed, ordering aside all other maglev traffic. A steward sergeant came over the intercom earpieces of the on-the-move peace officers, briefing them.

**_"Code 5150, I repeat, we have a Code 5150 in progress! The Medical Center has been compromised by a recent psychiatric patient outbreak. Reports have stated that the inmates have overwhelmed the orderly staff and disabled the facility defenses after a destroying the local power grid, triggering the alarm. All of the 351 registered patients have escaped and are being tracked via their homing straps. ALL of them are now roaming the Primary Maintenance Corridor together. BE ADVISED: Use extreme caution, for one of the inmates is armed with a plasma-based weapon and extremely dangerous. Your priority is to find this detainee and arrest him or her. Then take control of the escapees as soon as possible before any more public or crew disorder ensues! Understood?"_**

"AFFIRMATIVE, SIR, WE ARE OSCAR-MIKE!" They all replied in a unison voice as they made their way towards the breached medical facility.

… … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … …

The psychiatric rejects stampeded their way across the service corridor, cheering everyone they came across and looting everything in their way. Maglev freight lines came to a halt, reversed, even toppled over in the face of over three hundred wildly running inmates.

Jeanette didn't know if she should be confused, scared, or excited. She was still singing Hot N Cold on the reject-'munks' shoulders with Brittany's plasma rifle. She felt good that the rejects were free because of her.

The mob of celebrating patients makes a hard left around a corner.

"HALT!" A unison voice command echoes throughout the hall.

The mob stops so suddenly, Jeanette falls off the rejects' shoulders and lands on her feet making the final note for her song, still clasping Brittany's plasma rifle.

"Oh my!" Betty gasped as she and the rest of the mob stopped ddea in their track, frozen in fear.

Jeanette looked up to see rows and rows of steward-'munks. Halfway to 700 years, she had been stopped by robbers. These stewards by the looks of it, made Jeanette realize that she was in very, very, VERY big trouble.

Brittany comes and takes Jeanette to the escape pods.


	20. Axiom Escape Vehicle

Jeanette and Brittany turbo lift stops at the main **BOARDING & EVACUATION** levels of the _Axiom_. The elevator doors open and Brittany stepped out, wordlessly guides Jeanette through the hallways. They were wearing their Single Ladies outfits. Jeanette was still wearing her helmet and she was still wearing the bandage on her except for the part where she had been needled. The air smelled stale and dust coated every surface. They end up in a vast corridor lined with bright emergency doors. The door they approach slides open as if for the first time, creating a slight screeching sound as its unused gears and railing grind together. Eve enters the dark room with a lone control panel like the hallways of this level, the room's old, dusty atmosphere meant that no one, crew, passengers or even maintenance have accessed these areas in a long, long time.

Brittany approaches the console and begins to fiddle with its controls, trying to get it up and running again. Jeanette watches her from behind, wondering where she was led and what will happen next.

She was confused, Brittany couldn't smash her head if she was wearing her helmet. Jeanette wasn't worried about getting her head smashed because of her helmet. But she was familiar with similar times like this. Her parents always brought her along when they had shopping to do and she didn't like that because she had to stick with them all the time and because they never let her buy any items she wanted. Sometimes Jeanette would pick up items of her own if they passed by any. But when it was time to pay, the cashier would type very fast, just like Brittany was doing now. Jeanette would've gotten nervous at the moment because she was worried that her item would be too expensive. When it was, Jeanette would be ordered to put it right back. When it wasn't, Jeanette would be sent to her room when they got home before she even got a chance to play with her item. This punishment would last until dinnertime. After dinner, she would be sent straight to bed, but not without taking her item to her room and trying it out quickly. What would happen next was that her parents would catch her in the act. They would pick up her item and throw it in the garbage. Jeanette had to go to bed without it, weather she was ready for bed or not. Jeanette hoped she would find that item someday while she was at work.

She'll do anything.

Her gaze lowered to Brittany's bloodied paw limp at her side. Jeanette could imagine Brittany wincing slightly as she tried to move her fingers. She thinks back to Combination, remembering one of her favorite parts from there. What happened was that her favorite character got a flat wheel when the green car brushed him. She even remembered the line from there. Brittany's paw seemed 'flat' as well. But Brittany was too angry to notice her 'flat paw'. Perhaps Jeanette could just touch it. Jeanette held out her own paws. Neither of them were 'flat' so she was okay. Besides, the feel of her paws were soft, yet caring. It occurs to Jeanette that this may be the right moment to hold Brittany's paw even though it was 'flat'.

Yes! She will take Brittany's 'flat paw' to calm her down and tell her the reason she was followed...

The room springs to life before she could speak though. Ceiling lights activate to reveal an evacuation bay. Yellow emergency directory arrows lit up on the deck and the walls, all pointed to an opened hatch at the end of the room, into the bright interior of an _Axiom_ escape pod. Inside were a circle of twenty crash-harness seats, terrestrial survival gear and emergency extra-vehicular activity equipment. Outside the view screen on each side were rows upon rows of thousands of escape pods lined the outer hull of the _Axiom_.

Brittany turns to Jeanette, her expression blank like she knows what Jeanette is going to do next but Jeanette doesn't do anything except look between her angel and the hatch, wondering what to do.

"Get in," Brittany points to the escape pod. Jeanette's slow to understand, looking between her angel and the escape pod, why was she needed in there?

Brittany figured Jeanette didn't understand, she was too impatient to clarify everything for Jeanette, but she tries to remain calm and explain simple.

"I said 'get in.' It's going to Earth." She points to the screen above them to show Jeanette. It projected a celestial map and the coordinates to Earth from the _Axiom._

Jeanette looks between the hatch and the screen.

"OH! Umm...ok," she finally understood and happily scurries into the pod as Brittany told her to; so they're going to take the escape pod down to Earth. Jeanette couldn't believe it. Her luck has turned for the better. They are going home, so she thinks.

She takes a seat, clasping her paws expectantly and patiently like an obedient schoolchild. She looks back to see Brittany still at the entrance, she doesn't seem in any bit fazed of leaving.

"Well...are you coming?" she pats the seat beside her.

Brittany shakes her head as calm as she can.

"No, I am not."

"Huh?" Jeanette's enthusiasm for a homecoming suddenly vanished.

_What? She's not coming?_

"W-W-Why not?" She grows uneasy.

Brittany shakes her head again. Everything Jeanette had told her about was true, so 'Helmet-Girl' shall get the punishment once more.

She had once told Jeanette it was classified and here they were. Jeanette trying to play innocent because she ruined everything.

She shook her head again.

"Because I need to follow my directive, I need to find the plant."

"The plant?"

_She's staying because of the plant?_

"But, I-I thought you have it already."

"I did, until you stole it and lost it," she gets straight to the point. Though she's hiding her bitter disposition towards Jeanette rather coolly, she's still too impatient to be rid of her.

Jeanette tried to put the pieces together.

_So that's why she's so angry? I lost the pl-_

"W-W-W-Wait a second! _'I'_ stole and lost the plant?" she stuttered.

"Yes. And that's why I'm sending you back to Earth."

"B-But I didn't take it! It was frozen along with you in your pod the whole ti-" Brittany cuts her off.

"Well no one else, but you, has seen the plant, so therefore, you're the only one who could possibly have taken it. Unless you can tell me where it is or what you did with it, I don't need you around here anymore." She turns around to the console, just had enough of Jeanette playing innocent with her.

It made little sense to how she felt, Jeanette thought Brittany would be happy to see her again, to be with her, like on Earth. Jeanette had to ask her directly the only daring question to answer all her confusion.

"Is that why you are so mad?"

Brittany stopped dead in her tracks. Clearly, Jeanette, in all her never-ending sincere curiosity, truly didn't understand what happened to her throughout her presence on the _Axiom_.

She turned around in a flash, with fire in her eyes as she snapped at Jeanette.

"Why am I so mad? Why am I SO MAD? I'M PRACTICALLY PISSED OFF! BECAUSE! OF! YOU!"

She lost whatever calmness she had left as she approached Jeanette with an accusing finger pointed at her. Jeanette shrunk down as Brittany yelled and stepped closer to her with her pointed finger until she poked her every accusing finger into Jeanette's nose, which added to the pain of her braking heart.

"YOU STOLE AND LOST THE PLANT! GOT ME COURT-MARSHALED! SENT ME TO THE WARD! YOU BROKE IN AND SAW ME _NAKED_! YOU MADE _OTHER CHIPMUNKS_ ALLOWED EVERY CLINICALLY INSANE CONVICT ON THE SHIP TO ESCAPE! CAUSED A RIOT! ALMOST KILLED SOMEONE! AND WORST OF ALL: **YOU TOOK AWAY MY CHANCE TO BRING THIS SHIP BACK TO EARTH! REDUCED ME INTO A WANTED CRIMINAL AND A LAUGHING STALK! **WHEN THERE'S WORK TO DO, THERE'S NO TIME FOR LOVE!**"**

Jeanette's mind ran in fear-ridden circles. Scared over all the things Brittany had said. Although Jeanette was used to being yelled at, she was scared. Jeanette couldn't get a word in edgeways. She backed up some more, shivering.

After Brittany stares her down burning holes in her heart with her fiery eyes, she whips her back to Jeanette, her bushy tail almost smacking Jeanette's helmet the way Jeanette's parents would spank her hard in the rear below her tail. She begins to cry, paws touching helmet in a loss of words.

"I'm sending you back to Earth and that's final. And good riddance too, I don't need _you_ around to make my life even worse than you already made it. At least I'll know it's far more comfortable here in the brig than rotting away in that craphole planet you call 'home,'" Brittany said without noticing Jeanette's sad/scared looks. If Jeanette tried to speak, her voice would tremble and tears would keep raining out of her eyes. This lecture was enough to reach her ears and stick a knife through her heart.

Her eyes are all wet and weepy. She was in a heap of trouble. Jeanette had been through this many times when her parents were alive. But they never apologized for yelling, so she would cry herself to sleep. In the morning, her eyes would be all red and sore from all that crying.

She couldn't believe that her one and only angel would do this to her. Not only would her voice tremble, it would also come out as a whine.

Brittany moves over to the control console, readying the ship to send her away...

_No! I'm not going back! _

She felt an awakening when she realizes in a few moments she will be sent back if she stays on this pod. She didn't have time to cry now, she had to take action.

_I'm innocent! I love her! I am not going let some irritated female of Brittany send me away and loose her forever!_

A new emotion runs through Jeanette, one she thought she would never relay or express to Jeanette. She exits the pod, standing up as tall as she could.

Brittany was just about to start launching the _Axiom_ escape pod when she notices Jeanette strolling up to her.

"Get in the escape pod, Jeanette," her voice final. Jeanette responds in the most unexpected way that grabs her complete attention.

"No."

Brittany looked at her dumbstruck did she refuse to obey? Her confusion didn't last long, for her boiling anger was now taking control of her thoughts.

Theodore interrupts and put the plant in the pod. Jeanette picks it up and Theodore launches her into space.


	21. Extra Vehicular Rescue

Theodore hurryingly shuts off the launch alert system, not wanting to draw attention to a jettisoned escape pod. All is quiet as he takes one last look at the escape vehicle shrinking in the distance of the void. Just a little bit longer and his task will be complete, the pod needs to get out of plain sight before that happens though but he can't stay here to watch it, should Captain Simon take notice in the **BRIDGE** or any passengers or crew watching outside. They hardly ever do, but better safe than turns to leave, but freezes. Did he just hear a sound?

He runs out of the launch bay to avoid any witnesses. Brittany emerges from behind cover, too worried to be relieved of avoiding detection after calling out to Jeanette.

"Oh, no," she dashes over to the viewport hatch and looks on in horror to see Jeanette rapidly dwarfing and disappearing into space. She tries to think, what should she do? Jeanette's getting farther and farther by the second, what should she do?

Brittany looks around in desperation, her mind too stressed of the situation for quick coherent thinking. She spots the service airlock. That's it! She must go after Jeanette. As fast as she can move, Brittany accesses the extra-vehicular survival gear, Brittany frowns when she sees there's nothing but BNL spacesuits.

_I'll just put the helmet on. _She begins to panic.

Brittany puts the helmet on and blasts out of the instantly decompressed airlock, the escaping air catapulting her into the vacuum of space at high velocity. Brittany straightens her body like a skydiver, her tail curled against her back. She neutrally diverts more of her single ladies outfit's power to the antigravity boots, leaving a contrail of blue light in her wake.

She surpasses the escape automobile's speed, slowly gaining on it. Nineteen thousand, five hundred meters, then nineteen thousand meters...eighteen thousand ...

She pursues Jeanette like a bat out of hell bent on saving an innocent victim…

… … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … …

Jeanette had no idea what just happened, one second she was closed off from Brittany and now she was pinned to the hatch, screaming in panic as the escape vehicle rocketed away, making her stomach rotate like the wheels of her favorite character from Combination from the g-forces of sudden speed burst.

The _Axiom Escape Vehicle_'s onboard computer decelerates the pod.

"_CRUISING SPEED, YOU ARE NOW FREE TO MOVE ABOUT THE CABIN._"

Jeanette falls to the deck, the least too relieved. She's still gathering her situational awareness.

"Uh, oh," as she sees the great flagship star liner begin to dwindle in the distance, she realizes she was launched and getting farther and farther away from the _Axiom_, from Brittany! She has to do something!

She scrambles to her feet, looking around for what to do. Jeanette sees the control column and looks back at the _Axiom_. She dashes for the piloting controls, she has to get back to ship. Jeanette grabs the steering yoke, it won't bulge. She pulls harder, still nothing, after slamming the controls it still doesn't respond to any of her commands.

"Come on!" she fights the controls, realizes Theodore set it to autopilot.

She keeps trying until it says it'll blow up. Jeanette gets out, meets up with Brittany and the pod explodes.


	22. Single LADIES

Brittany remained hovering in space several kilometers from the _Axiom_. She gazed in complete shock and despair at the rapidly dissipated fireball of the destroyed escape pod, its oxygen-deprived flames and white-hot debris fading in with the glimmering stars of the Milky few seconds she remained shocked seemed to last forever for her, the spectacular view of the surrounding nebula and the distant galaxy couldn't draw Brittany out of the disdainful state she was in. She witnessed the occupant of that pod blown to smithereens in an instant. Brittany feels a swelling and queasy sensation inside her as if punched in the stomach. She just saw Jeanette die before her eyes.

"No…no…" Brittany shook her head in denial, still not believing that this happened. She felt if her entire universe came crashing down upon her.

She was too late. She wasn't fast enough to catch up and save Jeanette. If she had not conceived the idea of sending her away in that abominable vehicle and inadvertently left it operational for Theodore unknowingly sending her off into space. If she wasn't so wrongfully ill tempered with her to begin with...she would have not sent her to her death.

She continues her way toward the remains of the escape vehicle, uncertain as if she were still trying to go after her.

Brittany spots something white flying in her direction from the debris field. It was somewhat chipmunk sized, approaching fast, and it's leaving trails of powdery white crystals in its wake. Brittany isn't the least bit concerned for it at the moment other than dodging it to avoid collision.

It whizzes passed her and towards the _Axiom_.

_Wait a second. _

Brittany flips around when she immediately recognizes something familiar about that flying piece of debris. It is a chipmunk in a blue single ladies outfit, a helmet and bandages, waving a paw at her.

"JEANETTE!"

She shouts inside her helmet, her gut-punched sensations faded, she is alive and well.

… … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … …

"BRITTANY!" Jeanette shouts in joy and waves as she flew pass Brittany.

She seemed to be calling out to her as if she didn't hear her. She could neither hear her nor anything except for the sound of her breathing. Though she can't hear the voice she treasured so much of her since sound waves cannot travel in the vacuum of space, the very sight of her is comforting enough for after what happened, she is too happy to see her.

Jeanette emerged from the explosion unscathed yet a bit shell shocked that she managed to open the hatch at the last second and narrowly avoided being blown up. The instant she saw Brittany, her universe fell right back in place, all was okay.

She still flew away from her, she let go of the extinguisher's lever to stop, though she kept drifting without slowing down or speeding up. Without anything in the void to move against to turn her body around, she points the extinguisher hose behind her back. She presses the lever, the propulsive force rockets her right back the way she came, zipping right pass Brittany again.

She lets go of the lever and points the extinguisher behind herself for a quick burst. It slows her down until she came to a stop, surprised how much movement she can do in space with the extinguisher.

Brittany tries catching her too, and yet overshoots. She turns around to see her a few hundred meters away before she could stop in her tracks.

Jeanette waves at her to stay where she is, learning of how effective short-controlled burst are of the extinguisher, gently squeezes the lever several times. She seemed to get some excitement out of flying in the vacuum with this simple device, she toys around with it as she navigates her way to Brittany.

Just as Jeanette gets within arm's reach of her, she is too preoccupied with the extinguisher as she unintentionally sprays the crystallized white foam at her to slow herself down. She chuckles slightly at seeing her so happy with such a materialistic object as a fire extinguisher. Jeanette plays around with it still, bursting it in several directions, changing her position in zero gravity; she is having lots of fun with it in a new light besides the one she threw away back on Earth.

"Jeanette, I'm so sorry," Brittany gently touches her shoulders with both paws to get her attention, their helmets on contact, now they could hear and touch each other.

To be sure she was alright, Brittany feels and looks over Jeanette. Other than her still-present shakiness, Jeanette's helmet protected her from being burn or seriously harmed while escaping. Brittany sighs in overwhelming relief, as if a huge load was lifted off her shoulders, knowing she isn't hurt.

At least, not hurt externally just recently. She finally notices her bandaged side. Brittany thought this over. Touching Jeanette's side would cause her to wince. This wouldn't have happened if for Jeanette's suit that she had taken off earlier. Brittany decided to to get mad at her, had she thought the Axiom was breathable. The Axiom was breathable alright, but if not for Jeanette's helmet, her nose would be bleeding.

"Brittany, please forgive me."

Jeanette's eyes were starting to well up with tears again, had she done a bad thing. She was sure Brittany would punch her, adding more pain to her side. She had caused a lot of trouble and was expecting a lecture, bur instead Brittany looked at her in pure worryness.

Brittany pulls Jeanette toward her, embracing her around her chest. She buries her face in her shoulder, too ashamed to continue looking at her after remembering everything she did to her.

"Whoa," Jeanette is surprised by her sudden hug, unlike all the other times of physical contact, she felt very soft, gentle, and did not hurt her this time. In fact, she feels VERY soft and gentle against her. Her orange fur feels so fluffy. She feels like a doll. Jeanette's parents would never hug her after what they did to her. Somwtimes they would punch her arm and she would wince the way her favorite character from Combination would.

Just thinking about it made both girls giggle at the joke. The time Jeanette showed Brittany her movie was so much fun to remember. Jeanette knew every line and movement better than anyone in that movie. Brittany loved it when Jeanette's character shook off water, Jeanette imitated it so well.

"Jeanette..." she she spoke quietly while still hiding her face.

"…I… I'm…" her voice sounded crooked, saddened, and trying to get her sentence out of her lumpy throat.

"…I'm sorry…I'm…so sorry."

Jeanette couldn't believe it. Brittany apologized to her. This was the first time Jeanette had ever heard the word "sorry"

"S-sorry? For what?"

"…f-for being so…" she tries to think of the right words to describe overall how she's been acting towards her, not that it would only be a single-fitting descriptive word Jeanette could comprehend but a word in itself could articulate all the terrible treatment she has shown towards her.

"…so…"

Mean, terrible, or awful were too simple. Masochist, gruesome, or overly emotional were too complex. She wishes she could say them all at once but she wanted simply yet sincerely apologizes for her inconsiderate cruelty.

_Inconsiderate. Cruelty_. Well, given that it's hard enough to find one word for it all, it'll have to do.

"…so…inconsiderate...so cruel...so...stupid. I've been such an idiot t-to hurt you so much, Jeanette…I'm so sorry," she finished in a very silent whimper, holding her tighter.

Jeanette stayed silent, letting what Brittany sink in as she silently wept on her shoulder. Jeanette's parents would never do this to her. Instead they would punch her arm as a punishment. Sometimes it would hurt so much, Jeanette wouldn't be able to stop herself from shouting in pain. Brittany was acting as if she had gotten lost in space. She felt foolish for treating her this way. Brittany shouldn't scold Jeanette for following her, she should comfort in the times needed.

"Brittany, look," she holds the plant out from the embrace to show her.

Brittany couldn't believe her eyes. Jeanette had learned a lesson after all. And that was why Brittany scolded her in the first place. What a silly thing to do!

"JEANETTE!" She instantly took the plant in both hands and placing it in her biodegradable stasis container, her face once ridden with sorrow now shined with pure joy because of her.

**"OH…THANK YOU!"**

Jeanette flinches when an overjoyed Brittany wraps around her

skinny frame in a vise-grip hug, spinning in circles.

"…THANKYOU! THANKYOU! THANKYOU! THANKYOU! THANKYOU!..."

Jeanette quickly forgets her fear, can't believe her luck as Brittany can't stop thanking her.

"Aww...you're welcome." She returns the tight hug, resting her head on her shoulder. Getting dizzy and elated at the same time as the starlight and violet nebula swirl all around her in zero gravity, she closes her eyes, falling in a state beyond euphoria as she let the radiant scent, smoothness, and warmth of her loved one's happiness fill the rest of her senses.

They stopped spinning, remaining in a snug embrace. Jeanette lifts her up, making eye contact with her beautiful blue ones, not a single trace of her recent sadness could be found. She was further entranced in ecstasy when she takes in the brilliance of her radiant happy face. Her crystal clear irises shone the magnificence of her angelic face enveloped in her orange fur, not matching her outfit or the astronomical view of the purple stardust clouds around them and the twinkling swirl of the Milky Way galaxy behind her.

Brittany is out of breath from thanking her though she thinks she hasn't shown her enough gratitude. She had practically ridded her of her guilt and solved her primary problem of recovering the plant altogether, everything will be all right now that she can complete her directive!Her lips curl into an alluring smile when she realizes their faces are only a few inches apart, in the spur of the moment she has found a way to truly show how much she thanks her.

Brittany's delicate paws cup her helmet. Then…leaning forward with eyes closed…

_Huh? _Jeanette is taken by surprise.

_What is she doi-_

…she presses her helmet to hers.

Jeanette's mind goes blank, her body freezes like a statue, eye pupils contract to pinpricks and her heart rate quadruples in a split second after she feels what she believes is Brittany's helmet-kiss with her helmet against her own. If she wasn't mistaken, she felt a tiny moan escape from her through their intertwined helmets. She faints instantly upon the sensory overloading realization that she had touched the very edge of Heaven.

She had kissed her.

After a second or two longer than she thought she wanted to, Brittany

broke free of the kiss, still mere centimeters from the kiss.

The two girls sing single ladies and wake up the passengers. After the song, they head inside.


	23. Lido Deck

The Earth seemed a lot cleaner in the backdrop of blackness as the _Axiom_ approaches it. Somehow, its atmosphere and landmasses deeply cleansed to which it reflects the _Axiom_ itself…along with the small furry fingers of certain whooshing Captain Simon holding the _Axiom_.

"Prepare for landing," Simon mimics his voice over a pretend radio, the rocket engine sounds of the miniature model of the ship touching down with screeches of landing gear tires on the scale globe of Earth against his viewport. By himself in his quarters, he let his mind childishly wondering about the prospect of returning to Earth, regardless of missing bedtime; he enjoyed it as a child, and he still does.

"We're here everybody!" he keeps his voice low yet playful pretend voices between his point of view and second person standpoints of cheering passengers.

"'Yay, Captain Simon, we're home! It's so beautiful, oh thank you!' Oh, no it's nothin' I was pleased to do this. It's all about you people, it's not about me, it's—"

His holographic computer console pings, drawing his attention from playing pretend. He hovers over to the console with the globe and toy star liner in hand. A new square hovering over his pictures of Earth research shows a newly written message from the medical ward.

**X-AxMEDFAC.1.0—B. SIMON****, CPT. Ax. IE: JEANETTE**

Now Captain Simon was in his "We Are Family" tuxedo, but is still wearing his hat and jacket like a cape. Alvin was in his "We Are Family" outfit and Jeanette was in hers (she had taken her helmet off after singing Single Ladies with Brittany).

He opens the file, reading it all to himself.

BNLS AXIOM MESSAGING ORDER 011931-12

PRIORITY CODE: Green

FROM: _Axiom_ Medical Clinic and Evaluation Center

TO: Captain Simon, BNLS Axiom

SUBJECT: 'Jeanette'

Classification: Private

Upon order of Commander Alvin, the evaluation laboratory has performed a complete genetic profile identification of the patient known as 'Jeanette,' even in the light of today's Code 5150 outbreak. After extraction and analysis of necessary deoxyribonucleic acid samples, we have discovered that no record exists of her within any of the _Axiom_ within any of the _Axiom_ computer's passenger or crew DNA manifests, nor does she exist within any genetic database in the _Axiom_'s records.

However, diagnostics did come to the following conclusions of the individual 'Jeanette" upon searching through the Buy N' Large historical archives, specifically of Operation: Cleanup. PCR analysis maps out her gene pool ancestry to a family tree located within BNL Cleanup Sector North America zero, zero, one, known as Miller, which were among the two hundred million preselected laborers to continue the global operation. All further historical information for the Miller descendents has ceased upon the date of June 27th 2110.

"Jeanette," is her name. We found out she has a breathing disability, which is why she wears a helmet all the time.

She can only breath the air inside her house (whatever it is).

Should she try to breath outside, within minutes, Jeanette would die.

If she shows up again without a helmet, your orders are to electrocute her and dump her in the garbage chute.

She will never be able to breath and she will die.

I bid you good luck.

Warm regards,

BNL CEO

Captain Simon sat there in thought for moment, processing all the information about Jeanette, some information was wrong. Jeanette was able to breath, but Simon thought she only had a few minutes left before collapsing to her death. He wasn't too happy with what the CEO told Alvin to do. "I just hope Jeanette's wearing a helmet when she comes," he said. "If she doesn't, Alvin will electrocute her and dump her in the garbage chute."

The trash chute in the corner flies off its hinges as Lieutenant Brittany (with her yellow dress and anti gravity boots on) busts out of the disposal conduit. She is wearing her air helmet.

Captain Simon nearly jumped out of his hover chair, he turns around stunned by her sudden and unexpected appearance.

"Lieutenant Brittany?"

"Simon, I found it!" Brittany hastily salutes before she holds the seedling planted in the boot out of the biodegradable stasis canister.

"I have the plant! I was telling you the truth. I have found photosynthesizing life on Earth."

Captain Simon is at first, dumbfounded and slow to comprehend, but his expression grows to great levels of awe.

"How…" He drops the globe and toy ship in his hands.

"C-Can I see it? How did you find it?" He hovers over to Brittany , reaching out to see like a child awaiting a long awaited treat.

"It's a long story, but I have it." She proudly hands him the plant, who is beyond amazed to further question Brittany about her journey to get it, too stunned and excited by the sight of the plant and the realization of what it means.

"We can go back home, for the first time!" That meant Earth, and upon that thought, his curiosity about it returns.

"Oh! What's it like now?"

"Sir?"

"You know, Earth, how green is it? What's the soil and the seas like?"

"Uh…" Brittany isn't sure how to answer what she explained earlier on the BRIDGE. Though she had proof Earth is habitable, it doesn't change the fact it is as it is, desolate.

"…uuuum, well, sir, its—" Captain Simon cuts her off.

"Nonono, don't tell me!" he excitingly hovers over to his console with Brittany following in uncertainty.

"I wanna see for myself, let's see the footage."

Brittany knew what he meant, but she's sure he isn't going to like it. She reluctantly removes her tiny camcorder, a device the size of a pencil eraser hidden behind her intercommunication earpiece that visually and audibly recorded thousands of hours of her expeditions from her point of view. Captain Simon eagerly takes the camcorder and plugs it into the console, the holographic-screen projection full of Earth research and Jeanette's data (right and wrong) minimized with the overlapping footage, beginning from the moment Brittany reanimated from her cryogenic pod.

Upon scanning her surroundings, Captain Simon's smile lessened as the images of the desolate wasteland come into view. A lessened smile that turns into a look of disturbed confusion as more even desolate wastelands and polluted sky come into view from watching the Reconnaissance Vehicle launch.

"Wait, that doesn't look like Earth." They watch her joy flight, seeing a full view of the desert landscape and the remnants of Sector _NA-001_.

"I'm afraid it is Earth, sir." She fast-forwards from her plasma blasting a rock to her roaming the littered city of New York, scanning everything in her sight, making brief glimpses at the brown daylight.

"But…w-where's the blue sky?" Everything he sees trash brown, desert brown, and more polluted brown as far as Brittany could see."Where's the grass?" He looks to the screen's side to see the exact opposite perspective he postulated upon his research of Earth, all the beautiful lush green, clear skies and soft fertile ground, all of it isn't real. This only confirmed his questions after reading Jeanette's right and wrong information and what her life was 700 years ago with her scolding parents.

Brittany notices Captain Simon's distain, skipping the footage of first contact with Jeanette.

"So, the Earth is polluted?" Simon asked worriedly.

"Yes, I'm afraid so," Brittany replied wisely.

Simon's heart sunk, as much as he wanted to deny it, he couldn't turn down the evidence of her trip before him. His dream, his every proud and ceremonious imagination landing on their home planet destroyed. With no other explanation, he slumps in his chair, unable to coop with this demoralizing information.

"I found the plant within Jeanette's home. She must've discovered it first before she gave it to me." She fast forwards to meeting Jeanette and their time together in her home, to draw away Captain Simon from his depression, only failing to lighten his spirits when a fantasy has been shattered to fragments. Brittany plays the moment Jeanette presents her her prized Combination film.

_"...oh-oh-oh-oh-whoa, yeah, you're sputtering_

_Oh-oh-oh-oh-oh, eh-eh-eh-eh..."_

At least music was all it took to get his attention.

"I know that song. He's…uh…" Simon leans closer for a look at the dog shaking off water.

"Shaking off water! He must've gotten wet! Jeanette must like it when someone does something funny!"

He realizes he is tapping with the rhythm to the song, a song to feel alive throughout, indeed. He lifts the boot in his other hand, marveling at how such a weak, simple seedling as this could survive so much hell to come out this far.

"You made it somehow, eh little guy? You didn't give up, did you?"

A single leaf falls off the stem. Simon's heart skips a beat, seeing the plant slowly come apart. He tries fruitfully to somehow reattach the leaf to the plant's stem. It appears to be dying and needs a nourishment of some—

"Wait a minute, water!" he hovers quickly to the nearest faucet.

… … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … …

Now by herself, Brittany continues watching the footage while letting her mind wonder. The recording projected the images of Jeanette showing her around her home along with how to dance which resulted in her sending her flying across her home, with a black eye.

She couldn't help but let out a giggle whenever the little brown chipmunk did anything amusingly clumsy she witnessed. Though she was empathetic to her for a while, every time she followed her around with those large lost-puppy-eyes, she only ended up unintentionally hurting herself (except for her head for the times she wore her helmet), but she continued to follow her as if nothing happened. It always somehow brought out a laugh in Brittany. She has turned out to be quite the kid to have gone through all that. It made her just too adorable to watch.

Brittany glances over Captain Simon's holographic-screen to see the minimized message from the **WARD**, regarding Jeanette and her genetic profiling. She lets the video run as she curiously opens the files and starts reading everything Captain Simon read, his ancestral background, his forgotten full name, physiology and all his known or unknown information. Her interest in 'Jeanette' suddenly grew, re-reading each paragraph and forming many questions about her in her mind.

As she read the disturbing parts of how her 'isolation' and 'scarred' state of mind, Brittany's face turns morbid. Despite what little she knew of her other than the fact she was the last of her kind, she never wondered until now about how she must have felt living on that desolate planet of Earth. Then it came to her: Jeanette's parents died 700 years ago! At first, Brittany thought Jeanette's parents had bought her all the things she had presented her with, but as the video played on, she realized it was false. The video showed her parents lecturing her at night and scolding her about everything. Brittany could also see that whenever there was a storm, Jeanette would want to sleep with her parents to feel safer. However, her parents would send her straight back to her room with a lecture. Jeanette wouldn't be able to sleep. She'd be crying until the storm was over.

What Brittany was most curious about was what happened to Jeanette and what else she'd gone through in her time.

_"...Betcha he reads..._

_Betcha she sews..."_

Brittany gets curious about this song. Its tune isn't as catchy as the previous one. It is slow, yet pretty.

Brittany soon realizes that Jeanette loves her.


	24. Maybe

Brittany looks down at her hands, slowly interlocking her slender fingers together. The memory of Jeanette presenting her the plant, then her going into automated cryonic stasis upon taking the plant from him, completing her directive. The camcorder still runs during suspended animation, capturing everything that happened outside her cryonic pod before retrieval.

The screen then shows Jeanette's large eyes in shock, confusion, and worry at the moment after she was frozen.

**"...Brittany?" She taps the pod as if to somehow get her attention. No response. She leans against the pod to hear for any signs of activity within it. Nothing. . . just the pulsating green light.**

**"Brittany?" She panics, shaking the pod to awaken her. Nothing happens.**

**"B-B-BRITTANY!"**

**Her cries for her echoed through the treedome, through the storm and through the night as she tries getting a response, she was frozen and unresponsive.**

Brittany's complete attention was now on Jeanette in the screen. She stood quietly with her hands still interlocked as she intently watched all the days 700 years ago when Jeanette's parents and siblings were still alive.

**Jeanette waited patiently for her father to come out of the bathroom. She waited for a few moments and then she decided to knock and make sure he was okay. Jeanette knocked on the door. "I'm on the pot!" shouted her father. "Is everything okay?" Jeanette asked nervously. "Go away, Jeanette!" shouted her father. "You know you shouldn't disturb other people when they're on the pot! You gotta think of other people too!"**

Brittany gasped softly. Jeanette had remembered to knock that day, but her father thought she was disturbing him. All she wanted to do was make sure he was okay and he told her to go away. Footage of Jeanette's father shaking his finger at her shows how the morning with Jeanette's parents are like. Brittany couldn't believe what she was seeing. She also sees Jeanette at breakfast. She noticed that Jeanette's family would cut the food down to the size of a crumb. She also noticed that Jeanette was allowed to only use spoons. Brittany thought about this. Most families would use a fork and knife, but why would Jeanette's parents not let her use them? Then it came to her: Jeanette's parents must have that rule for safety. Jeanette's parents don't let her use a fork or knife so she won't cut herself. Well, using a spoon to eat all the time seemed like a funny rule. Brittany also saw the time Jeanette was outside with her big brother and sister. They got to play outside for five minutes and as Brittany watched, Jeanette's parents came out to stop them. What she saw made her gasp. She saw Jeanette's parents take her and her brother and sister by the arm and dragged them inside. Jeanette was dragged up to her room and pushed inside. Brittany looked worriedly. She thought about what she just saw. It must've been a terrible life if your parents send you to your room when you just wanted to get some fresh air and exercise. That was why Jeanette wanted to go outside. But Brittany had just learned another rule that seemed very strange. The rule was that Jeanette could only do things under her parents supervision. Brittany gasped at the thought of not being allowed to do anything without supervision. Brittany also learned that at mealtimes, they weren't allowed to have conversations. Brittany was pretty sure Jeanette liked to slow down every once in awhile. Not being allowed to do that didn't seem like a good rule. Another rule she learned was that Jeanette couldn't leave the table unless she finished everything on her plate. Now that rule seemed no good at all. If Jeanette had to follow the rule, she'd over stuff herself and that would probably hurt. Brittany winced at this rule. The afternoons were very strange indeed. What Brittany saw was that Jeanette would curl up to watch Combination. It seemed she really liked that movie. She'd even showed it to Brittany. Jeanette was able to watch her movie until the first verse of the song Sputtering, but after that, there was a knock on Jeanette's door which sounded like hammering. After one knock, Jeanette's mother came into the room. Brittany heard Jeanette's mother say "Jeanette, dinner!" That was strange. It was afternoon and Jeanette's mother already called her for dinner? The afternoon was too early to have dinner. To make this rule system stranger, Jeanette was forced to go to bed as soon as the first hour of evening came. As soon as Jeanette was ready for bed, instead of saying, "Good night. Sweet dreams." her parents would give her lectures about everything she'd done during the day. They would slam the door so hard Jeanette jumped. She would have trouble falling asleep that night. Brittany also found out that the lectures gave Jeanette nightmares.

**... Jeanette was soon ready for bed, but her parents instead of tucking her in, lectured her. "You have to learn your lesson, Jeanette. You're very lucky that you have parents. You wouldn't like it if you were in an orphanage, would you?" Jeanette shook her head. She was shaking. "And," said her father. "You went outside without our permission. You were very lucky that we saved you. You won't be so lucky next time. We won't always be there to help if something goes wrong. Did you think of that?" Tears began to come out of Jeanette's eyes as she shook even more. Jeanette's mother continued. "You have to learn about apples, Jeanette. They're very bad for you." "And apples will rot your teeth. You'll get a cavity." said her father. "Go to sleep!" shouted her mother. And they both walked out of the room and shut the door hard. Jeanette got startled by the sound of the door slamming. Her startled cries did not go unheard by her mother. "And that's my final warning!" she said. She slammed the door again, leaving Jeanette shaking in fear with her eyes full of tears. Jeanette curled up and shakily closed her eyes. But she would not sleep very well.**

Brittany's eyes became sheets of glass, on the brink of tears upon hearing those terrible words that came straight from her parents. Of course Jeanette liked her parents, but they didn't think so. They thought Jeanette wished to not have a family anymore, but that completely not true. Jeanette would never make such a silly wish. If Brittany were Jeanette's mother, she'd let her go outside anytime she wanted. Fresh air and exercise are very important. Brittany would let Jeanette stay outside as long as she wanted. And if anything goes wrong, Brittany would always be there to help. And Brittany was sure Jeanette would be careful with a knife and fork. Brittany would always comfort Jeanette if ever she was sad or scared. She even saw Jeanette on stormy nights. Jeanette wanted to sleep with her parents to feel better, but they sent her back to bed. Jeanette wasn't able to sleep because of that. She shook uncontrollably.

"Poor Jeanette," Brittany said as she looked down at her paws.

Meanwhile, Jeanette decided to climb up the chute to Brittany. SHe put on a helmet and began to climb.


	25. ALPC 113

Alvin tells Simon why they can't go to Earth. Jeanette comes and gets electrocuted by Alvin. She and Brittany get dumped down the chute and Simon gets trapped.


	26. Jeanette's Back Story Part 1

Earth, not so far away has a lush green forest, full of squirrels and chipmunks (in case you find this weird). The cities have humans in it and they're two hours from the forest. Living in one of the trees in this forest is a family of chipmunks. One of the chipmunks was brown and had purple eyes with purple glasses to match.

This was Jeanette.

She had a mother and a father and a big and little brother and sister. Life in her house or tree rather should be pleasently peaceful. Having siblings to play with and parents to keep you out of harm's way. Jeanette's parents do a really good job of that.

However, they overdo it.

They set rules that no other families would set. Jeanette's parents tell her all kinds of rules even ones that not needed. Rules like "always watch your back," or "don't do anything without supervision" apply to their house.

One day, Jeanette waited patiently for her father to come out of the bathroom. She waited for a few moments and then she decided to knock and make sure he was okay. Jeanette knocked on the door. "I'm on the pot!" shouted her father. "Is everything okay?" Jeanette asked nervously. "Go away, Jeanette!" shouted her father. "You know you shouldn't disturb other people when they're on the pot! You gotta think of other people too!" Jeanette felt bad. She hadn't done the wrong thing, but her father didn't believe that. Jeanette's father eventually came out of the bathroom and Jeanette could go in.

Later at breakfast, her parents were not happy. They were eating with spoons so no one would cut themselves. And the eggs (scrambled) were cut down to the size of a crumb so no one would choke. Jeanette's parents were treating her like she didn't have any teeth! Now the family ate in silence for awhile, then her mother spoke. "Jeanette," she said sternly. "Your father told me you disturbed him while he was on the pot. I'm not happy with you." Jeanette calmly put her spoon down. "Well, I didn't mean to," she said. "But I just wanted to make sure he was okay. And I remembered to knock." "You're not supposed to disturb people who are in the bathroom. Do you know how late you made him?" scolded her mother. Jeanette tilted her head. "Two hours late." Jeanette's mother answered for her. "He's two hours late for work and because of you, he's going to lose his job. You really have to learn to knock, Jeanette. That's no way to behave." "Oh. sorry, dad," Jeanette said taking a bite and looking at her father. "It's too late to apologize, kid," said her father. "Thanks to you, I'm going to lose my job." The family finished eating without further conversations. Jeanette felt bad for making her father lose his job.

However, this was not true.

Later that day, her father rushed to work, but he wasn't late, he was early. He didn't lose his job so the family was worried over nothing at all. Jeanette's father worked as a safety teacher, teaching young children about teenage safety such as no smoking or knock before entering a room. He also explained that his daughter Jeanette had forgotten to knock. However, his explanation was all false.

Jeanette meanwhile had decided to play outside. Her big brother and sister were with her. They were playing tag to get some good exercise. Jeanette knew this was important and this was all well and good until five minutes passed. Jeanette's mother was watching from the window while putting anything she thought Jeanette would hurt herself with out of reach of Jeanette and her siblings. She noticed Jeanette and her brother and sister running around and getting exercise, but she thought they were being chased. Quick as lightning (no offense to those with the name), Jeanette's mother ran outside and grabbed her, whilst her father gabbed her siblings and dragged them into the house. "Hey!" Jeanette protested. "We were playing." Jeanette's mother showed no signs of apology. "Go to your room!" she shouted. She pushed Jeanette by her tail up the stairs. Jeanette winced because she was being pushed very hard and it was painful. Once Jeanette was upstairs, she ran to her room but not without wincing from the pain she was experienced. She collapsed on her bed to let the pain ease. "Ouch." she said.

As soon as she felt no signs of pain, Jeanette got up and popped in her favorite movie: "Combination." She liked this movie because it showed all the parts from Cars when McQueen does something funny. Along with this was her favorite song "Sputtering." Because this movie was so funny, it always cheered her up. Jeanette curled up in a blanket and smiled as she stared at the screen. This little moment lasted a good five minutes. By the time her song reached its second verse, Jeanette heard a knock on the door. "Who is it?" asked Jeanette, not nervous because whoever it was remembered to knock, just as she had done earlier. "Jeanette, dinner!" answered a voice Jeanette knew. It was her mother. Without complaints, Jeanette took out her movie, shut off the TV and came downstairs.

Once everyone sat down to dinner, Jeanette's father seemed really fed up. "Jeanette," he said. "I need to talk to you." "How was work today?" asked Jeanette, taking a bite. "Work! Work? Jeanette, I'm fired! Do you know why?" her father replied. "I did remember to knock, daddy," said Jeanette. "I'm sorry to hear that you lost your job." "Sorry doesn't help, kid," said her father. "And stop calling me 'daddy.' You won't always have parents you know. One day, you have to learn to address people properly." Jeanette gulped as a shiver ran down her back. She made a promise to herself that she wold take good care of her parents and show them she loved them. Hopefully, they would love her back. How clever she was.

After dinner, Jeanette decided to watch the rest of Combination. "Go get ready for bed," said her mother. Jeanette sighed. She was a little disappointed as it was quite early. But the day's events had made her tired. She went upstairs to get ready for bed.

Jeanette was soon ready for bed, but her parents instead of tucking her in, lectured her. "You have to learn your lesson, Jeanette. You're very lucky that you have parents. You wouldn't like it if you were in an orphanage, would you?" Jeanette shook her head. She was shaking. "And," said her father. "You went outside without our permission. You were very lucky that we saved you. You won't be so lucky next time. We won't always be there to help if something goes wrong. Did you think of that?" Tears began to come out of Jeanette's eyes as she shook even more. Jeanette's mother continued. "You have to learn about apples, Jeanette. They're very bad for you." "And apples will rot your teeth. You'll get a cavity." said her father. "Go to sleep!" shouted her mother. And they both walked out of the room and shut the door hard. Jeanette got startled by the sound of the door slamming. Her startled cries did not go unheard by her mother. "And that's my final warning!" she said. She slammed the door again, leaving Jeanette shaking in fear with her eyes full of tears. Jeanette curled up and shakily closed her eyes. But she would not sleep very well.


	27. Jeanette's Back Story Part 2

The next day, Jeanette's alarm clock rang. It was special to her because when it rang, it sounded like a smoke alarm, in case Jeanette wanted to practice a fire drill. However, Jeanette's parents do not like it. They ran into Jeanette's bedroom, grabbed her and took her outside. They then scolded her about setting off her alarm. "You've got to stop pulling the fire alarm," Jeanette's mother said. "If you keep doing this, I'm never letting you wake up." Eventually, Jeanette and her family went back to bed, as there was no fire. When the parents' alarms clock rang at 6:00 am, which sounded like a bunch of bees buzzing, they took one look at the clock and shouted at the same time, "We slept in!"

What happened next was not a pretty sight.

Jeanette's parents shook her and her siblings awake. Jeanette was instructed to hurry up in the bathroom. They were in a big hurry at breakfast too. All this was scaring Jeanette. She wasn't too worried about choking though as the pieces were cut down to crumb-size. Once they were finished, Jeanette was told to hurry up with teeth brushing. Her siblings were told the same thing. Jeanette went with her father to the store.

Now, she would find out why the family was in such a rush.

Once Jeanette and her father arrived at the store, they slowed down. "I'm terribly sorry I'm late," said Jeanette's father. "No, you're quite early." said the storekeeper. Jeanette and her father entered the store. Jeanette now had some time to look around. "Hey, don't wonder off," said her father. "It's a big store. You'll get lost and there's nothing I can do about that." So Jeanette stuck close to her father, but the truth was it was a very small store. So even if Jeanette did wonder off, she wouldn't get lost. While her father went on with shopping, Jeanette spotted something out of the corner of her eye. She went over to it, realizing it was a Rubix cube. The price said $5.00. Jeanette decided she wanted it, as the store owner seemed like a nice lady. She took the item and showed it to her father. He looked at the price and scoffed angrily. "That's way too expensive, Jeanette," he said. "Put it back!" "But it's only five dollars." Jeanette said. "You have enough cash, sir," the storekeeper piped up. Jeanette's father sighed angrily. He did have enough money to buy Jeanette's toy. So they payed for her toy (and their groceries) and walked home. Jeanette skipping happily as she couldn't wait to play with her toy and her father stomping because he was mad at her.

"Did you make it?" asked Jeanette's mother that afternoon. "No," said her father. "First, we're two hours late, then, Jeanette wonders away and gets lost and then, she picks up a toy that was way too expensive." Jeanette was searching inside the grocery bag for her toy. "How much was it?" asked her mother. "fifteen thousand dollars," replied her father. Jeanette had finally found the toy. "No it wasn't," she said. "It was only five dollars." "Go to your room!" said her mother, grabbing the toy. "And don't come back until dinner time." Jeanette did as told, but she really wanted to play with the Rubix cube. After all, it wasn't very expensive.

Later that night, Jeanette was in a bit of a hurry to finish dinner so she could play with her new toy. But when she was done, her parents sent her straight to her room. She took her item to her room to quickly try it out.

As soon as Jeanette was ready for bed, she began to toy around with the Rubix cube. It was kind of fun to change the colors like that. Jeanette toyed with it until it was half-solved. Suddenly, Jeanette heard her parents open the door. They threw Jeanette to bed. "No more buying expensive items," they scolded. They grabbed Jeanette's toy out of her paws and tossed it into the garbage.

Jeanette eventually fell asleep, but not without having bad dreams.


	28. Garbage Airlock

Brittany felt pain all over her, throbbing and stinging disorientation overwhelmed her senses in the dark. The blackness slowly parted to a blur of faint colors flooding in and out of her mind as she drifted in and out of consciousness, so much so that as if her body and mind felt separated. Groaning, she slowly opens her eyes, only to have them shut tightly again as the pain intensified inside her forehead.

_Pain is a good thing, _her instincts told her, the words imprinted into her head by her merciless Extraterrestrial Vegetation Reconnaissance & Evaluation instructors from combat training.

_It means you're still alive, _she lets that thought run through her, forcing herself to open her eyes, harrowingly welcoming the head splitting ache using it to recompose herself and wake up.

Brittany's vision clears as she takes in her immediate surroundings to see there's still darkness around her. She can't move. The pain from inside her head combined with some physical objects prevented her from moving to a degree. Whatever it is that held her in place, it smelled most stink is all around her. As she moves her eyes and head around as much as she can she sees silhouettes of mountainous piles in all directions in a dark, ugly, deep mess inside a vast metallic chasm with holes looming above. The lit holes kept opening and closing, depositing clutter to these enormous cliffs of junk. Brittany slowly recognizes she is in the _Axiom_'s garbage airlock. She must've fell from one of the massive chutes above her, sliding down the trash hill until she was pinned down. Her golden dress is ok, she was uninjured with the exception of a few minor cuts and grazes, and the ache of what felt like she was electrocuted.

Her mind clearing, she begins to remember images of what happened right before she ended up here. About how she was brought to a garbage chute by Theodore, stunned point black by Alvin, explaining the stinging pains, whilst screaming at him for—

She turns stricken.

"JEANETTE?"

She calls out to her as everything returns to her, she saw her dumped down here by that soulless first officer, after what he did to her. Brittany calls out to her again. Jeanette must've landed around here somewhere.

"JEANETTE? WHERE ARE YOU?"

Her voice echoes through the enormous depot, her voice does not echo back to her, no 'Brittany!' fills her ears. She fears the worst after what she saw back up on the BRIDGE.

What if she's dead?…The dead calm is shattered by the junkyard's klaxon, startling Brittany.

"_CAUTION: ACTIVATING AIRLOCK DISPOSAL…ACTIVATING AIRLOCK DISPOSAL…_"

A platform near where Brittany landed springs to life, stacked with enormous cubes the size of houses made entirely of compacted garbage. The platform slides into another cavernous chamber where it sealed off by a transparent blast door. The moment it seals… whoosh! Brittany's adrenaline spikes, watching the cubes of space junk sucked out of the chamber as the exterior blast doors open, jettisoning the cubes into the vacuum. That'll be her if she doesn't find a way out and doesn't find Jeanette.

"JEANETTE? JEANETTE?"

Lights shone all around her, the deck rumbles. She turns her head, hoping she had been found and might find a way out. Greeting her were wall-sized, metallic claws shoveling her into a maw; her expression goes fear-ridden as it was a moment ago.

Two, gigantic machines with floodlights begin racking several metric tons of garbage within their hydraulic compacting chambers. They're box shape, automated super compacting units that work the depot, compressing and ejecting trash to be jettisoned.

It's a close call for her not to be squashed to death when the cube is spat out of the mammoth garbage compacting robot. Brittany is still in a whirlwind of panic for she's held in place by several tons of trash and her cube is being placed on an already completed platform full of compressed garbage. She's already a goner.

As she dreads over what few seconds she has left, a brown twitching arm and a familiar brown furry chipmunk sticks out of the cube in the corner of her eye.

"...Britt...help..." Jeanette's weakened voice made Brittany almost jump out of the cube.

"JEANETTE!"

She found her, and she's still alive.

"_CAUTION: ACTIVATING AIRLOCK DISPOSAL…ACTIVATING AIRLOCK DISPOSAL…_"

The platform begins to slide into the chamber, by estimates, they have twenty to twenty five seconds before they are sealed off and thrown into space and Brittany won't survive for a single moment since she doesn't have her helmet. Her mind races into action, no time to think over what they don't have or can't do. She can't use her plasma rifle, let alone move, but— _antigravity!_

Her boots activate upon neural command, the antigravity field releases the compressed mass holding her in place, bursting free. She turns over to Jeanette.

"JEANETTE! I'M GETTING YOU OUT OF HERE!"

She only groans in response, she is alive, yes, but to what extent she does not know and she doesn't have time to hesitate or look her over.

Eighteen seconds left. She digs around her to get her out, but she's buried deep in the cube.

Sixteen seconds left, she digs faster…

… … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … …

A screaming voice echoes through one of the garbage chutes in the depot. Eleanor drops down from the openings landing safely on the garbage piles, only to scream louder from the surrounding mountains of filth. Her fear for germs overwhelmed her to the point it doesn't matter and it doesn't by the way, for she regretfully had to ignore her fear in order to jump down here and find that chipmunk who put her through this ordeal.

She looks around frantically out of the fear and fury. Her Heads-Up Device flashed '_FOREIGN CONTAMINATION_' everywhere she looked, and so much so that one spot looked like moving germs, giving her chills.

Hang on a second, her HUD zooms in on the rather large moving contaminant inside a closing chamber. She immediately recognizes the Extraterrestrial Vegetation Reconnaissance & Evaluation scout trying to pull out…her!

"SHE'S IN TROUBLE!" She charges out of the depot, scrubber in hand (she's wearing her 'We are Family' outfit). Her short legs propelling her at the impossible speed of her now-worryness of that sweet Jeanette!

"I'LL SAVE YOU!"

… … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … …

Thirteen seconds left. Brittany is clawing through much garbage as she can with her super strength, time's running out. Deep enough to grab Jeanette she yanks on her limp body to free her but she barely budges, despite her skinny frame she's compressed in there really tight.

Ten seconds left, she dares look behind her to see the gap of the airlock doors narrowing. Her mind races at light speed, unable to make it in time if she even gives any further coherent thought. She tugs on Jeanette with all her might, straining her as she

is slowly pulled out of the cube.

Seven seconds left, she doesn't have enough time left…

… … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … …

Eleanor rounds a corner and leaps over the platform rail tracks. She races against the closing doors of the chamber, as fast as her short legs can run. Her sterilizing fluid container being a hindrance to carry but she's almost there!

Five seconds left, Brittany uses her antigravity boots, grunting as she tugs Jeanette with all her seconds, only her legs and tail still left to be unstuck! Almost there!

One second, no time left!

… … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … …

_ALMOST THERE! _Eleanor could already feel herself wincing at the pain Jeanette may be in. Until, while ignoring her surroundings, her fluid container jams in the closing doors.

"What the—"

… … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … …

Zero seconds.

All happened simultaneously, Brittany pries Jeanette out, Eleanor helps them and Brittany flies with Jeanette and Eleanor to get Jeanette back to Earth.


	29. Uprise

Brittany, Jeanette and Eleanor pop out of the chute and head to the Lido Deck. The reject-munks followed


	30. The AXIOM Adventure

At exactly 12:31:00 AM Greenwich Time, 28th of June, 2805 AD, all 1,550,000 people on board the Buy n' Large Star liner _Axiom_ were awakened by sudden floodlights and klaxons blaring all over the ship.

Pools, holographic ads, shops and the artificial Earth-time environment of night close down everywhere. Trams and hover chairs automatically following highlighted green light paths leading towards the **LIDO DECK**. Passengers and crew had no time to ponder over what was happening, before their hover-chairs sealed them with inflatable _Axiom's Extra-Vehicular Activity_ life preservers. Passengers astray at night and those who slept, sealed in plastic helmet preservers, hovered out of their cabins or hallways. Everyone chattered in worry and confusion, very unfamiliar with this procedure, let alone looking around the surroundings outside their holographic-screen virtual-realities.

Among over the one million passengers and crew, Jon and Mary watched everything happen as their hover-chairs moved on their own. They enter the concourse to the **LIDO DECK**, awestruck seeing the entire human population of the ship gathering on the **LIDO DECK**, forming massive circles over the solidified swimming pool. The deck is massive enough to hold tens of thousands populace in the center around it on balconies.

_What's transpiring must be extremely serious,_ Jon and Mary shared the same thought. Mary eyed a group of terrified toddlers crying.

"Remain calm… remain calm…"the slightly overweight nanny-munk pitifully tried to silence them, completely unaware of the mass confusion around the infants they don't understand. Mary wanted to reach out and cuddle those children to settle her own fear. She didn't understand what's happening either.

The klaxons suddenly stop wailing at the same time another sound took place. It is a whirling up whine of hydraulic actuators powering up for the first time in seven hundred years, coming from the con tower plaza. Everyone turns to the source of its origin, murmuring in awe as the Buy N' Large logo on the floor moved. The blue circle within the logo rose, revealing a cylindrical tube with a biological symbol embedded on a special slot where to place a live specimen.

A captain's whistle resounds the deck, the dome holographic-screen activates for a live broadcast from Captain Simon. Everyone is shocked to not receiving answers to this whole dilemma. More questions arise as everyone watches Captain Simon struggling with the first officer in awe, caught. in the conflict, watching it as a televised fight between wrestlers.

Simon tries to keep his face in the fiber optic image and trying to be in command, all the while Alvin tries to pry him away with punches.

_"**Erg, ladies and gentlemen… this is your- Ugh! Captain Simon speaking! We are having a slight problem—OW! With the helmsmunk here. Aagh, let go, Otto! Everybody please OW! Remain calm OW!..."**_

… … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … …

Brittany dashes out of the **MAIN DECK** concourse, taking in the image of over a million people gathered here.

Her enhanced vision locks on to the cylindrical device at the center of the plaza. A green hologram-screen materializes over it with a specimen symbol, signaling her to the _Axiom's_ holo-detector.

"YES!"

She holds Jeanette

tightly in her arms, her fur stings from the electrical shock Alvin gave her. She vibrates whilst wincing. She doesn't have much time left, but Brittany will save her. Kicking her antigravity boots to full power, they fly towards the holo-detector.

"Almost there!"

… … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … …

Alvin used all his strength to lift a struggling Simon

off him to peer over the interior window console, facing the **LIDO DECK** down below. Over a million of blue uniformed passengers could see him over the active broadcast, cheering for the ex-captain they know to overpower him.

Alvin felt hopelessly outnumbered by all these... had no idea of what truly was happening or what he is trying to accomplish and yet everyone will turn against him. No matter how simple he could explain to them, they will condemn him. Word would soon spread of his intentions to keep everyone aboard this for eternity if need be. Though they weren't suppose to return to Earth, they will turn on him and Forthright knows what they'll do to him. With no possible support after Theodore's splash.

Both had some time to think. Maybe they shouldn't have done this to Jeanette. The good guys will win because of her. Alvin decided that if Jeanette doesn't die, he'll apologize.

Simon started to wear Alvin down. His weight combined with his headlocks were becoming too much.

"Ugh, what's wrong, Alvin? Losing your cool?"

Simon tried forcing Alvin to surrender, noting the changing expression of pitifully suppressed panic on the unreadable officer-munk's face. Stress slowly overtook the futile mental attempts to remain calm and in control, the feelings of being cornered, all chance of help for his cause lost and pushed beyond the limits gripped Alvin. He kept reminding himself it's for the protocol but it's becoming less and less relevant against his instincts in the hopelessly declining battle.

A white speck zoomed over the blue crowd below, towards the raised holo-detector. His bionic lens zooms in on the high-speed object.

His mental capacity to remain calm and control vanished, no longer in coherent thought at seeing the impossible sight to the end of his world.

Still alive, Lieutenant Brittany and Jeanette flew towards the holo-detector with the plant, about to end _A113_ and return to Earth.

Alvin finally snapped.

"**ENOUGH!**"

Out of desperation, he slams his hands down on the wheel on his track-stick, flipping Simon over his head, who lands a few meters away… Simon slides further away, the deck seems to be tilting...

… … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … …

...Jeanette holds the plant out to the holo-detector's slot as Brittany flies her towards it, just a few meters away.

The holo-detector tilted to the side, Jeanette's paws slam into the side, stinging the fur on her paw and dropping the plant. The plant rolls over the side of the plaza and into the crowd. Brittany stops midair confused and shocked. The **LIDO DECK** tilted too.

The entire _ship_ tilted...

… … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … …

...Alvin slammed on the track-stick's controls, commanding the ion maneuvering thrusters to list the _Axiom_ twenty degrees starboard. The ship began rolling on its longitudinal axis so fast that the artificial gravity fluctuated, unable to keep up with the turn on its axis.

Alvin's

sanity still in a downward spiral, reduced to nothing but a panicked control-freak, now knowing he has one very big advantage to regain the control he lost in the battle. Instead, he now has control of the presses many commands as he can into the track-stick's controls, kicking the evasive starboard roll into overdrive...

… … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … …

...Mary began slipping out of her hover chair on her right side, the deck tilting dangerously and her seat remained locked in place, allowing her to slip off her chair. She calls out to Jon for help. She sees him slipping out of his chair too, panicked as she was.

All the people fell out of their chairs, screaming and sliding across the LIDO DECK as the _Axiom_ rolled past forty=five degrees to the starboard.

Panicked and confused at this chaotic turn of events, Brittany forces herself to set Jeanette down on the upside of the holo-detector, yelling out to her over the chaos around them.

"Jeanette! Stay here! No matter what happens, stay right here!"

Jeanette nods, stays leaning over against the side of the cylindrical device. Brittany flies off to find the plant across hundreds of meters of shifting deck. Her mind racing impossibly fast as she desperately searches every spot between and beneath falling passengers.

The _Axiom_ kept tilting by the second, people slid faster until they fell vertically, piling up on the listing side literally hundreds of thousands of people burying one another. Some strong passengers and crew clung to the floor crevices, stopping themselves from falling and holding onto other passengers. The rejects among them have clung onto whatever surface they could on the deck floor.

Mary held Jon from a light post. The toddlers she saw earlier were sliding straight towards Mary, her eyes widen seeing them crying in terror. Sure enough, they won't survive the fall.

"Jon! Get ready to have some kids!"

At the right moment, using her untapped strength, she swings Jon around to catch the free falling toddlers, letting go of their clinging to the post and sliding to the mishmash pit of passengers below. The toddlers stopped crying as they come to safe a halt, cushioned by the fat passengers. Brittany floated above them, searching for the plant underneath the heap of humans.

A crashing sound rocks the **LIDO DECK**.

"LOOK OUT!" Mary yells out to Brittany in terror, she flips around to feel equaly terrified.

A maglev monorail slides down straight towards them like an avalanche. It derails off the balcony and plowed empty hover chairs out of its way.

She flies straight towards it, slamming her open hands hard on the falling train, using all of her strenth since she's only wearing her "We are Family" outfit and antigravity boots. It comes to a grinding stop, just a few meters above the passengers, barely saved from being hit. Brittany struggles to hold it up, weighing several metric tons. Her superchipmunk strength and "we are family" dress could only do so much. Brittany's fur was beginning to sting and she could feel it.

Alvin switches the maneuvering thrusters off and the _Axiom_'s starboard tilt comes to a standstill at seventy-five degrees. He stayed magnetically bound to the deck as Simon flailed around on the listed floor like an upside down turtle trying to get up, cursing Alvin's devious turn of the tables.

With the attempted sabotage of his directive terminated, Alvin lets out a breath of relief he never knew he held.

Now, he has to seal the safety of _A113_, and ensure all means of returning to Earth are gone. He presses the holographic-detector command, closing it for good...

… … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … …

...Jeanette felt the holo-detector activate, it began sliding down into the balcony floor.

"Uh-oh." Though weakened, scared, and dying, she uses all her strength to stop it from going down, though it's useless. There is no surface suitable to grip it and it weighed several hundred kilos.

The holo-detector almost half way lowered into the floor. Thinking desperately, she does the only thing she could do. She wedges herself under the upper lip of the holo-detector.

Using her legs, Jeanette presses her back against the lowering disk of the device. The mass of the holo-detector forces her legs down, squashing her into a crouching position. Jeanette grunts in fiery pain as her knees begin to sting along with her tail, belly, arms and chest. These body parts have wounds so it hurts like crazy.

The holo-detector jerks to keep lowering, its hydraulic gears grinding and struggle against the object wedged in its path...

… … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … …

...The holo-detector button flashes. Alvin is taken aback by the malfunction warning. Just moments away from shear success of his directive and now something extremely important has to break down on him.

"What! Now!" Alvin frustratingly opens a security camera access to the **LIDO DECK** facing the holographic-detector.

A holographic-screen materializes to show an abominable familiar figure jamming her body into the device. Jeanette, the source and cause of all the chain of events on the _Axiom_, Alvin's worst enemy, one he thought he already killed.

"NO! WHY WON'T YOU JUST DIE ALREADY!"

He repeatedly presses the holo-detector button furiously...

… … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … …

...Jeanette fought to keep the holo-detector up with all her fading strength, but was in a losing fight. She felt her fur stinging more in her legs and sides. She bit her lip to fight the pain, but she's wearing her helmet, so no pain came to her head. She was so scared, so tired, she just wanted this to end, but she couldn't. She felt like it was killing her, which it is.

She can't stay like this for long. The effort draining what little life she had left in her, it wouldn't be before she gets hurt.

Jeanette slips, Brittany puts the plant in the holo-detector and the ship flies home.


	31. All On Deck

The emergency blast shields instantly close over the shattered window, resealing the detected breach of the hull and preventing the gale force decompressing air from sucking Simon out of the **BRIDGE**. He drops to the deck floor, slowly peaking out one eye to see if he was still alive and Alvin out of his way.

His plan worked. Instead of breathing a sigh of relief, he stands up triumphantly.

Placing the peaked cap back on top of the rightful owner, Captain Simon returns to Alvin's track-stick and the fiber optic broadcast. Uproar of cheers echoed throughout the halls of the _Axiom_, seeing their Captain Simon emerging victorious.

As he reactivates the ships stabilization controls, the _Axiom_ levels out, artificial gravity returning to normal. People on the **LIDO DECK** spilled out from the starboard side, some hung from the higher spots they clung on to, unharmed.

The battle all over and he won.

Jeanette didn't. For everyone on the ship celebrated, only one person cried her eyes out for Jeanette...

… … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … …

...Finally free from suspending the monorail, a grief-stricken Brittany immediately rockets over to the holo-detector.

She tries extremely hard to lift the device up, it didn't budge hence it weighed several hundred kilos. She lifted it with all her might, still in tears and her gut-wrenching despair growing.

**_"Brittany!" _**Captain Simon's voice temporarily draws her attention to the **BRIDGE** broadcast on the dome holographic-screen.****

**_"You need to get the plant! Then you can get her out of there!"_**

Brittany turns to the recovering crowd, shouting at the top of her tear-choked lungs.

"PLANT! SOMEONE FIND THE PLANT!"

There were only a few confused and traumatized looks in return. A small girly, squeaky, high-pitched chipmunk voice breaks through the dumbfounded crowd.

"I'll look for it!" Eleanor, in her "We are Family" outfit, tries to dig herself out of the mass of passengers. Not stopping to straighten her dress, she starts scanning the deck for any signs of the boot. The rejects fan out to overlook the complete starboard side where it must've fallen.

Though still shaken, the passengers try to scramble to their hover-chairs. Some even tried to stand on their own two feet, encouraged by the captain's courageous standoff.

After a few minutes of searching, Eleanor's pace slowed, she probably overshot it by now.

"_FOREIGN CONTAMINANT._"

"Huh?" Her heads-up device locks onto an unsterilized biodegradable organic object lying a few meters away, no genius needed to figure out what it was.

"THERE IT IS!"

Picking it up, she holds it over her head like a trophy.

"BRITTANY! I FOUND IT!"

She couldn't keep the holo-detector from squashing her beloved further. Her anger grew when Eleanor shouts out she found it.

"THAT'S GREAT! NOW BRING IT HERE QUICK!"

Before the short cleaning munk could sprint fast as her legs will allow, Violet swoops up the plant with her vacuum cleaner.

"Hea! Cath!" she launches the plant in the direction of the holo-detector. Before it falls to the ground, a passenger catches it, passes it to the next and the next. Passengers, crew and rejects form a human-chipmunk chain fire-line to get the plant over to the BRIDGE plaza.

Until Stella gets it, there is no way up the balcony to hand it to Brittany. Instead, Stella launches it with her umbrella, sending it flying towards Brittany.

She catches it and shoves it into the buried slot of the holo-detector.

The ship's computer instantaneously analyzes the plant and its place of origin. Calculating and tracking with great speed as programmed for seven hundred years ago.

"_IDENTIFIED: Ailanthus Altissimo..._"

The holo-detector slowly raises out of the deck, the mainframe computer voicing the finding.

"…_PLANT AUTHENTICY AND ORIGIN VERIFIED. NORTH AMERICAN SECTOR 001, PLANET EARTH OF THE SOL SYSTEM. DIRECTIVE A1-03 – DELIEVER SPECIMEN TO __AXIOM HOLOGRAPHIC-DETECTOR - COMPLETE. OPERATION CLEAN-UP ACCOMPLISHED. INITIATING OPERATION RECOLONIZE…_"

It was done. Her directive finally complete and officially finished although she didn't give a single care now.

She watched the holo-detector slowly rise from the deck. A figure of a chipmunk body emerges from the crevice of the device the surfaces around it coated in thick red. Her eyes were overflowing as she clutched her heart, distraught, hoping for the best and assuming the worst about what has happened to Jeanette upon seeing her own blood everywhere (except her head.

The lip of the device fully emerges from the ground and so does Jeanette, her body slumping to the deck floor in a sick gurgle, twitching lifeless, the pool of blood quickly expanding and growing darker under her.

Brittany gasps in horror seeing her body. If Jeanette were wearing her suit, this wouldn't happen to her body...

… … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … …

"_ALL SYSTEMS READY FOR COURSE SET TO EARTH._"

The **LIDO DECK** dome formed into a gigantic hologram of a celestial map displaying the Milky Way galaxy and the red dot of the _Axiom_'s current position outside the galactic rim. The ship's AI began navigational and mass-balance calculations as the map continually zoomed in from the galactic scale to the Orion arm, to the Oort cloud and finally locking on to the destination, the third planet orbiting Sol.

"_TEN SECONDS TO HYPERSPACE JUMP." _

The countdown timer appears on the dome above, next to the locked on target planet of Earth, twenty five thousand light-years away.

… … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … …

"…_NINE…_"

...Brittany nearly vomited, her mind vainly tried to deny the unthinkable, horrifying sight in front of her, of whatever left of Jeanette...

"…_EIGHT…_"

Jeanette had cuts all over her, except her head. There was one on her left foot, one on her left arm and one on her torso. Her eyes were closed, none black due to protection. But she wasn't breathing.

"…_SIX…_"

Though useless already, she convinces herself to gingerly place a finger to her neck, checking for a pulse to see if even a drop of life left in her...

"…_FIVE…_"

"No…" her voice choked up and her eyes reddened. There were no vital signs, her body only twitched lifelessly out of spinal reflex.

_"...FOUR…_"

"Jeanette!" her voice crackled with a sob forming.

"Don't leave me!" she pleaded to her, only the quick return to Earth, to bandage her all up, to apply all the bandages necessary except her head, could save her life from fading out of her. She could only wait for the next few seconds to the next few minutes, to her it felt like waiting for an eternity.

"…_THREE…_"

She cradled Jeanette's broken body in her arms tight and tenderly as she can while she let out her despair, her pretty golden dress stained dark red of her blood. Tears flowed freely from her eyes like a waterfall, her tear-droplets landed on her helmeted face, tears of unimaginable pain, worry and love...

"…_TWO…_"

...The _Axiom's_ recolonization preprogramming took over all its functions. The massive ship's ion engines fire yaw the vessel into the right direction for the jump. People onboard felt the relative motion of the ship changing its course. Everyone remained standing in silence, lowering their eyes in respect and grief for the poor chipmunk, feeling the same sadness her practical mother felt.

"Oh no, Jeanette . . ." Mary started to sob on Jon's shoulder when she sees Jeanette...

"…_ONE…_"

Deep within the _Axiom's_ engineering decks, a long forgotten, bulky and technologically complex machine slowly spin to life beneath the fusion reactor of the great starship, the Faster-Than-Light drive. Outside the ship, traces of Hawking radiation formed a bubble of negative energy in the space surrounding the _Axiom,_ The Planck particle acceleration of the drive's core wind up with the countdown, about to light off as the final note struck…

"…_ZERO._"

… … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … …

The _Axiom_ disappears in a blinding gleam of colors, the surrounding starlight warped around it in a glowing tunnel of blue-ultraviolet shift as the fabric of space and time ripped open, the most pleasing sight for an astrophysicist.

The great star liner jumped into hyperspace, an extra dimensional domain where special relativity doesn't apply. Instead of reaching a destination via a starship's relative forward motion, the destination brought to the ship via a quantum tunnel that exists beneath normal space. A wormhole that folds the distance between point A and point B, a short cut through reality allowing instantaneous transportation across the astronomical distances of the universe.

Passengers and crew prayed for dear life for the ship to hold together as it rocked violently through the unstable slipstream jump between spaces.

Amidst the rush, Brittany held onto Jeanette, crying out to her to hold on to whatever of her soul left in her. In the back of her grief stricken and desperate mind, she prayed for the space between her and Earth to bring the ship faster, not minding the danger of instantaneous interstellar travel.

_Hopefully instantaneous enough to bring her back..._


	32. Down To Earth

Infinite blackness speckled with trillions of stars.

The dead silence and calm twinkle of distant stars suddenly shattered by a blinding flash of colors and blue shift appearing out of nowhere, the starlight warping around the gravitational glitch of a wormhole.

A single Buy n' Large star liner emerges from the opening in space and time.

The Buy n' Large star liner _Axiom_ zooms through space, sudden acceleration from the inertia of hyperspace to a fraction of light speed in relative motion caused everyone onboard fly off their feet to the back of the ship from g-forces.

The ship rockets through space, slowing down as it approaches its destination: a brownish-blue planet with a phlegm-colored atmosphere and oceans in the company of a single orbiting moon.

Third planet from Sol.

… … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … …

Meanwhile, Holly obediently sat where her master once told her almost eleven days ago in Sector _NA-001_, at the end of the Brooklyn Bridge.

Her spot littered with Twinkie wrappings and spilled cans of beans. Out of food to scavenge for in the truck and nothing to look for in the city to eat except for a bunch of lush, green objects that recently started spurting out the ground across the metropolis.

Holly squeaks in boredom, eleven days may not be a long time for humans but for a mutt or for any canine of that matter, all measurements of time were irrelevant. A butterfly thinks everything takes and lasts forever. Worry seeping into Holly, believing her master may never return—

Holly shoots her head straight up, wildly flapping her wings. A red dot of light materializes in front of her and zooms down the bridge to the dried up river bed below.

Suddenly strange things for Holly started to happen. Thunderous sonic boom and the roaring of distant rocket engines echoed throughout the entire sector, causing the ground to shake. The daylight starts to darken, Holly looks up to the sky to see a titanic shadow casted over the land as an enormous shadow eclipses the sun through the polluted clouds, like the sky was falling.

More red dots appear before Holly, she eagerly gives chase to them as she eagerly gives chase to them as he runs to the vast concave in the Hudson Bay zone, anticipating the return of her master if she is in that thing falling from the sky.

The _Axiom's_ keel plows through the clouds high above the landscape, rocket motors fire up from bow to stern, decelerating the city-sized starship from atmospheric reentry to a graceful descend. The red dots slowly triangulate over their target, the deep man/munk-made chasm in the center of the Hudson Bay, the _Axiom's_ landing pad.

Maneuvering thrusters burst in several directions, carefully aligning the ship with the docking clamps. This is it, everything must be perfect, no mistakes. Any change of speed or if the straight alignment with the landing point crooked, the ship will crash down in a fiery and ungodly destructive display of explosions and death akin to an asteroid impact.

The keel spires descend into the landing dock, a few thousand meters to descend and decelerate after a few breathtaking moments and just a bit slower…

The rush of wind caused by wake of the seer-majestic size of the behemoth blasts the region with hurricane force gusts of air, plowing clouds beyond the horizon and blasting walls of sand in all directions, toppling skyscrapers and trash towers in the distance.

After a few minutes, all is dead silent once again. The dust settles to reveal the clouds dissipated from the wake, shining clear unpolluted sunlight over New York City.

The docking clamps have gripped the shape of the _Axiom's_ hull perfectly, bringing the vessel to a complete stop. Touchdown!

The desolate New York City dwarfed by the presence of the massive starship, ten times taller than any skyscraper and casting a shadow for miles. Now it rests in the Hudson Bay as it first left Earth seven hundred years ago.

At the base of the ship, hundreds of pressurized docking hatches unseal themselves to the atmosphere outside, ramps extending to the gateways of the boarding terminal. The hatches open up to the thousands and thousands of waiting passengers and crew of the _Axiom_.

Everyone stands in place, trying to adjust his or her eyes to the harsh sunlight of the deserted landscape. Then they stand there in bewilderment, taking in the foreign image of their home world they didn't know they left so long ago.

Captain Simon, still wearing his "We are Family" outfit along with a BNL air helmet, takes the first step off the ship, followed by Jon and Mary. The gravity is a bit strong on the populace, having come off his hover chair and calcium deprived in the zero gravity environment of space, but one by one the humans take slow steps out to the terminal, awestruck by the new sight of being planet side. Captain Simon awes in amazement as he looks around, the sight of Earth on the surface wonderful, but what is more wonderful is humanity and munkity has finally come home.

"MOVE! OUT OF MY WAY!" Brittany screams over the chattering crowd in the _Axiom's_ corridors. She zooms to the **MEDICAL WARD**, taking an advanced field surgical kit without permission with good reason.

She tightly cradled Jeanette's body in her helmet, so she won't have to touch her blood-stained body. She hadn't stopped crying ever since hyperspace.

She hastily brushes through the crowded exit, hovering over the terminal scanning urgently for Jeanette's home.

She hears a butterfly fluttering up at her, she instantly recognizes it as Holly. She started squeaking sadly at seeing her deceased master the way she is. Brittany notices too when she sees Jeanette's blood stain her head. There are no injuries there, but Brittany does not want to waste time. She shudders at Jeanette's bloody state.

"Jeanette! Please! Stay with me!" She searches the land desperately, in seven to ten more minutes she will be lost from her her moist eyes, her heads-up device locks onto the shape of a treedome on the Brooklyn bridge approximately three kilometers away, to her mind, it felt three more light-years away.

She rockets after the truck, going supersonic as her antigravity boots kick to full power. Desperation fueled her drive to save him no matter what. She hears pleas from Eleanor, the rejects, Alvin and Theodore to slow down (they were all wearing air helmets).

"Brittany, slow down!" cried Alvin. "We want to apologize!"

Brittany does not want Jeanette to die. Not now will she let a seven-hundred-year-old punishment last any longer.

She _will _save her for it is now her directive.

Captain Simon notices Brittany's sudden departure, places both paws on helmet in respect because it is over his captain's hat. The other passengers are also in respect, all praying for Jeanette's survival, the poor chipmunk which Alvin now realizes does not deserve to die.

It's up to Brittany to save her now, and also to unground her with that magical kiss.

"Good luck."


	33. Together At Last

The solitude of Jeanette's treedome is shattered by a sudden blast of wind, a chipmunk lands on her feet after flying here at supersonic speed, cradling the body of the treedome's occupant.

Brittany rushes inside the treedome, her every thought and movement going at flank speed. Holly rushes in behind her, squeaking in pleas to see her master wake up again.

She lays Jeanette's lifeless body on the metal floor and begun rushing in and out of the treedome to find some bandages. She searches frantically, already suppressing her tears for the time being. She has no time to cry she had to act fast.

With the quick-heal bandages Jeanette's parents began using after not being allowed to call the ambulance, Brittany took them and got to work.

She drops to her knees by her side and opens the bandage box she brought.

It's a small box made entirely out of wool. An ad about this said the material was for safety, so you wouldn't cut yourself with the box. Brittany knew that when Jeanette was wearing her suit and helmet, she didn't have to worry about cutting herself at all.

Brittany takes out one of these bandages and applies one around Jeanette's torso. The bandage feels soft and will heal the hurt lickity split. She takes another bandage and puts it on her foot. She takes another bandage and puts it on her arm. Jeanette was wearing her helmet when she was trying to lift the holo detector, so there were no injuries on her head. What Brittany did was clean off the stains with a special blood removal. Then, she put a bandage on Jeanette's chest. She lifted her dress and shot the roof of the tree. She would patch it up later, but this was important.

Brittany holds her breath for every passing second…

...she waited…

...and waited…

...and waited...

… … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … …

…_thump thump…_

_..thump thump…_

A very faint heartbeat echoes in Brittany's ears loud as music.

Jeanette stirs, her eyes open slowly and she remained on the floor unmoving, starring at her.

Brittany remained wide-eyed seeing her practical child suddenly awake. She couldn't believe she actually resurrected her. She let out all the air she held, her whole world fell back into place and back to normal. All her pain disappeared seeing her alive and well again.

Now she could give her the thing to make everything complete, to hold her paw.

"We can hold paws now if you like," she sweetly speaks, cleaning the blood from her dress with the blood removal.

"No, we can't," Jeanette bitterly speaks.

"What? Why not?" Brittany asks with a concern look in her eyes. "Are you ok?"

"You know what, Brittany? You were right," Jeanette said with a shrug. "When there's work to do, there's no time for love."

Brittany thought about this. Had she taught Jeanette a lesson the way her parents would? Suddenly it came to her.

_She lost whatever calmness she had left as she approached Jeanette with an accusing finger pointed at her. Jeanette shrunk down as Brittany yelled and stepped closer to her with her pointed finger until she poked her every accusing finger into Jeanette's nose, which added to the pain of her braking heart._

_"YOU STOLE AND LOST THE PLANT! GOT ME COURT-MARSHALED! SENT ME TO THE WARD! YOU BROKE IN AND SAW ME NAKED! YOU MADE OTHER CHIPMUNKS ALLOWED EVERY CLINICALLY INSANE CONVICT ON THE SHIP TO ESCAPE! CAUSED A RIOT! ALMOST KILLED SOMEONE! AND WORST OF ALL: **YOU TOOK AWAY MY CHANCE TO BRING THIS SHIP BACK TO EARTH! REDUCED ME INTO A WANTED CRIMINAL AND A LAUGHING STALK! **WHEN THERE'S WORK TO DO, THERE'S NO TIME FOR LOVE!**"**_

It bitterly hits here, that terrible lesson taught to Jeanette a whole hour ago.

"What? That was an hour ago," she says. "You were right about love, Jeanette and I wasn't."

Jeanette crosses her arms and huffs, just as her parents would.

Working with that theory, she looks around. Maybe something could refresh her

memory."Oh," she picks up the Rubik's cube and the light bulb, the bulb shined as she touched it. She puts the trinkets in her paws. Hopefully she remembers how much she liked finding these things.

She barely turns her head to look at the unknown objects in her paw. She had no idea what they are. Brittany gets the lighter from one shelf, maybe she will remember the night she was with her in her house part of the dome, one of her greatest memories she had of sheltering and sharing her treasures with her.

She flicks the lighter on in front of her, yet Jeanette doesn't seem to acknowledge the tiny little flame. She doesn't even register the soft glow of heat.

"Jeanette, it's ok. I won't throw it out," Brittany says lovingly.

Brittany slowly became worried. Why didn't she recognize things the way she should after she restored her? Something's missing…

"Oh! I know!" Of course, something was missing. Brittany rushes over to the VCR, pushing the play button to Combination.

As 'Sputtering' played its cheerful tunes, Brittany looks back at Jeanette expecting to see her be herself again. Brittany's eyes shot wide open in shock and confusion instead.

Jeanette took the paper where she wrote her lines, scrunched it into a ball and threw it in the garbage can.

"Jeanette, you don't have to do that." Brittany said.

_WHAT IN FORTHRIGHT'S NAME IS WRONG WITH HER?_

Holly sniffs her revived master, squeaks at her stipulating she didn't know the chipmunk at all, not the master she knew.

Why is this happening? Paralysis? No cognitive senses? No memory…

"Oh no…"

A dark realization came over Brittany. Jeanette must not be herself because of the rules her parents have set seven hundred years ago. And also the shock applied to her by Alvin.

"No wonder she's upset!" Brittany now understood what was wrong with Jeanette: She needed comfort. She needed to know that Brittany would never set such rules. The reason Jeanette lost her memory was because she was grounded. Of course! Jeanette had been grounded for seven hundred years. She didn't want to be grounded anymore. Now Brittany knew what to do.

She rushes over to Jeanette, but puts her helmet on first. Jeanette is wearing hers as Brittany finally came up.

"Listen, Jeanette. You are not grounded anymore. You're not alone. Apples will not rot your teeth and you can definitely say 'trick or treat' on Halloween. On Christmas, you can ask Santa for as many gifts as you want. And I'll take you on subway trips anytime you wish. Nothing is going to tear us apart. I will never set rules on you and you can definitely use forks and knives at mealtimes. I know you can be careful with them and you can chew slowly. Nothing bad is going to happen to you, I promise. You can play outside as long as you want. You can watch Combination with me anytime you want. Alvin is very, very sorry he shocked you and Theodore is too. They only did this to us because they thought Earth was unsustainable. But now that they know the Earth is sustainable, they won't do it anymore. When we go shopping, you can pick up any items you want, no matter what the price is. I won't throw it away. So remember, you'll always have me. You can always go outside and you will not get a cavity from eating an apple."

Brittany finished her comforting words with a kiss. She was about to leave, but Jeanette's fingers were caught in hers. Brittany tried to shake it off, but they were stuck.

Brittany's words, after the kiss, gave Jeanette some times to think. Brittany was saying the true fact about apples. She would let Jeanette eat anything she wanted. She would let her say "trick or treat" on Halloween. She would let her ask Santa for as many gifts as she wanted. She would take her on subway trips anytime she wanted, and it wouldn't matter how excited she would get. Nothing would tear them apart. Brittany would never set rules on her and she could use forks and knives at mealtimes. Jeanette can be careful with them and she can chew slowly. Nothing bad was ever going to happen. She could play outside for as long as she wanted. She could watch Combination with Brittany anytime she wanted. She decided to forgive Alvin and Theodore for what they did to her and Brittany. Whenever they went shopping, she could always buy an extra item no matter the price. Brittany would never throw it away. Then it hit her. She would always have this angel. She could always go outside and she would not get a cavity from eating an apple.

There was only one angel who would let her do all that stuff.

Her angel.

"Brittany? Is all that true what you're saying?"

Brittany's heart almost stops when she heard her say her name.

"Oh, Jeanette. It's all true," she says joyfully. At this point, Alvin, Simon and Theodore came up. Everyone got onto the treedome's roof and began to sing.

We are family

Oh

Everyone can see we're together

As we we walk on by

And

And we fly just like birds of a feather

I won't tell no lie

Just want to state for the record

We're giving love in a family dose

We are family

I got all my sisters with me

We are family

Get up everybody and sing

The rejects were dancing from below, happy to have their hero back while the crowd cheered.

Jeanette was grounded no more.

"Ladies and gentlemen," announced Stella over the microphone. "Earth is proud to present Jeanette with her new family!" Then everyone cheered as Jeanette and her mother, father, grandfather brother and sister began singing again.

Shake your groove thing

Shake your groove thing, yeah, yeah

Show 'em how you do it now

Yeah, shake your groove thing.

"Jeanette, you're all better," Alvin said joyfully. "We're sorry we shocked you."

"So, do you forgive us?" asked Theodore hopefully. Jeanette smiled.

"Of course I do," she replied. "You're my family."

"Cool," said Simon.

"And Jeanette," said Alvin. "I only shocked you 'cause I thought the Earth was inhabitable."

"Oh, really?" said Jeanette.

"Yeah," said Alvin. At first I thought the Earth wasn't sustainable anymore, but now that I know the Earth is sustainable, we won't do this anymore."

"Alvin, I'm glad to hear it," said Jeanette.

"Ok, this one's for my new daughter," said Alvin. "Everybody shake what your momma gave ya. Whoo!"

Then they broke back into song.

Shake your groove thing

Shake your groove thing, yeah, yeah

Show 'em how you do it now

Get up and shake it

Get up and shake it

Get up and shake it

Come on, come on

Get up and shake it

Get up and shake it

Get up and shake it

Come on, come on

Get up and shake it

Get up and shake it

Get up and shake it

Come on, come on

The crowd cheered.

Later that day, Brittany and Jeanette held paws. The boys went back to the Axiom to show the children how to grow plants. Jeanette's romantic song played from inside her domed house.

_Betcha he reads, betcha she sews_

Brittany and Jeanette were walking close to each other, holding paws.

_Maybe she's made me a closet of clothes_

They looked deeply into each other's eyes.

_Maybe they're strict, as straight a line._

They leaned close to each other, preparing to kiss once more.

_Don't really care as long as their mine._

"Aw," said the rejects and Eleanor in pure joy. Up near the Axiom, Simon was teaching about farming. "This is called farming," he said. "You kids are going to grow all kinds of plants. Vegetable plants, pizza plants! Ha-ha, just kidding. Oh, it's good to be home.

_So maybe now this prayer's_

Simon's voice echos in the distance.

_The last one of it's kind_

Brittany and Jeanette are still holding paws, surrounded by their new friends: The reject-munks!

_Won't you please come get your baby_

On a distant hill, more plants are growing.

_Maybe_

The Earth floats silently.

The end.


End file.
